


She Needs Us (And We Her)

by Agents_R_Us



Series: Mantis [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Parents, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood, Cutesy, Dysfunctional Family, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Human Experimentation, Medical Inaccuracies, Minor Character Death, Minor Jemma Simmons/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Missing Persons, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Compliant, Origin Story, Original Character Death(s), Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Stolen Moments, at times - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-10-15 00:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10546966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agents_R_Us/pseuds/Agents_R_Us
Summary: Seven years ago, Bobbi gave birth to a little girl, only to have her taken away mere hours later. Months passed as she and Hunter searched for her, all in vain. Then, Bobbi did the unthinkable: she told Hunter their kid was dead.Now, they may have just found her.(Original prompt by red lighting on ff.net)





	1. Many Mistakes May Be Mended (This Isn't One of Them)

Bobbi grips the pen between her thumb and forefinger, tight. She takes a second to gather her thoughts before signing the papers in front of her, filled with reckless abandon.

“Try not to rip the paper, Bobbi. Might void the bloody thing.”

Hunter catches the papers as she shoves them across the table, much to Bobbi’s chagrin. But then he, too, takes a pen from his council as if it’s a knife. Then he proceeds in attempting to cut out her heart as if he hasn’t already tried. As if he hasn’t already failed.

When she walks out of that room, finally free, Bobbi Morse is no longer married. She is, on the other hand, still pregnant.

She just doesn’t know it yet.

 

*eight months later*

“Bobbi, you can’t put it off anymore.” Mack’s voice carries a kind of frantic willingness to pound his perfectly logical opinion into her skull.

And, even if it makes sense, Bobbi decided months ago that she isn’t going to listen. Morse continues looking through the microscope, testing a sample of something-or-other. She can’t quite remember what it is, actually.

The science department had kept her on because of the bio degree. Bobbi hates it, but refuses to stop working either way.

“I’ll tell him,” she says. “Just another couple of weeks.”

“In a couple of weeks you’re going to have this baby. You don’t have the time.”

She looks up from the microscope. “Maybe I don’t have to tell him at all.”

“Bobbi, it’s his baby, too,” Mack reminds her. “Not telling him… it’s not fair to Hunter or the baby.”

The anger overtakes her suddenly, and she loses it. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t lie awake at night thinking about—“

Bobbi stops in the middle of her sentence as a wave of pain radiates through her body.

And then another.

And then another.

Blinding, radiating, horrific pain like nothing she has ever felt before is pulsing through her being, with every pump of her heart.

Mack shouts something as she falls down. There are people rushing around, screaming things.

She blinks and then she is on a table or a stretcher.

Another blink and there is Mack, holding her hand. He’s saying something, but she doesn’t hear it.

She wonders if the baby is okay.

She wonders if she should have told Hunter…

The world goes dark.

 

She wakes up in a hospital room filled with blinking lights and blurry people standing in doorways. There are two beeping monitors with lines going up and down in a steady pattern. It’s incredibly irritating, and a little comforting.

There are two monitors. Her baby is okay.

Bobbi’s vision sharpens slowly until she can identify one of the people standing in the doorway as Mack.

After exchanging quiet words with a doctor, he walks in and sits on the chair by her bed. “The baby went into distress. They said it’s from the stress, but you’ll both be fine.”

Morse nods. “Can you pass me the phone?”

Mack mutely puts the receiver into her hand.

Her fingers shake slightly as she dials the number. Hunter picks up on the fifth ring. “Lance Hunter speaking.”

_So, he still doesn’t have caller ID_ , Bobbi thinks.

“Hunter? It’s—”

“The Demonic Hell-Beast. Why are you calling me?”

Suddenly Bobbi loses the ability to talk properly. “Hunter… do you remember… about two weeks before we got divorced….”

“We fucked,” Hunter supplies.

“And then… about a month later I—”

“Bobbi…”

“I’m pregnant. Eight months.”

The line goes dead.

After a second of shock turns into silent realization, Bobbi is not sure whether to be disappointed or happy. Hunter obviously wanted an out. At least now, she didn’t have to feel bad about not telling him. She _should_ feel better, like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders.

So why was she still so damn guilty?

Mack takes the receiver out of her limp hand, looking sad. Morse tries to smile, but cannot seem to find the expression.

“He hung up,” she says simply.

Then the monitors start beeping faster. A nurse comes running in, but Bobbi can feel herself slipping again.

Mack takes her hand in his. “Bobbi, you need to calm down.” His voice is calm and insistent, breaking through the haze.

But the beeping just comes more and more rapidly.

They put a mask over her nose and Bobbi breaths in. She fades off into the darkness.

 

Hunter is on a plane.

He hates planes. The smell and the way it makes his head feel full. The fact that it’s a glorified piece of metal hurtling through the air at more than 500 miles per hour. The colors are too bright. Stark. Blinding.

“My… my wife is pregnant,” he tells the person next to him. His leg bounces up and down. Lance wonders where they have the booze, and then realizes that part of his life is over. He’s having a kid. Oh, god, he’s having a child.

“This your first baby?” His neighbor is a woman in her forties with dark, huge hair. She picks up on his nervousness immediately.

“Yeah.” Hunter consciously stills his leg.

“Boy or girl?”

Lance is stumped. Even this, the simplest of questions, he cannot answer.

What kind of dad is he?

“We don’t know yet,” he says, coving his own ass.

“Oh, saving it for the big day. You don’t see many people doing that these days.” She smiles at him. Lance realizes he must seem like a dutiful husband to her, perhaps coming home from a business trip he took reluctantly. And now he was all nervous, caring about his wife and unborn child.

“No, well, we wanted the surprise,” he replies. Lance hopes it’s a girl. He would love a boy just as much, but a girl just seems… nice.

The lady pulls out a picture of her grandchildren, four of them, before going on to list all the things Lance should be buying. Doing. Being. At first, it’s helpful, but the words soon turn sour.

Lance really didn’t know anything.

When the movie starts, they stop talking. It’s a quick release, the kind you don’t see coming until the relief washes over you. But Hunter does not watch the stupid rom-com, because he is imagining a life with him, Bobbi and their little girl.

 

Mack’s leg is bouncing up and down, too. He tries calling Hunter 52 times in the eight hours Bobbi and the baby are in surgery. The same eight hours that Lance is on a flight. But he does not know that.

“Bastard,” he mutters, starting to pace around the small waiting room. “Hope he falls out of the sky, ‘cause that’s where his brain’s at.”

(At this exact moment, Lance’s plane hits turbulence. He does not, however, fall out of the sky.)

A resident comes out to update him. She’s young, with dark hair and tan skin. Her eyes are deep brown, the kind that you can stare at for hours and never grow tired of. Mack barely glances at them, however. He’s too busy trying not to throw his phone at the wall.

“The C-section went well, Mr. Mackenzie. Your wife should be out of surgery soon,” the doctor drawls. It’s not a southern accent, but something is afflicted in her pronunciation. It sounds almost… fake but, again, Mack barely registers it.

“Thanks. And she’s not my wife!” Mack calls after her, but the brown-eyed surgeon is already halfway down the crowded corridor. All Mack can see is the back of her flowered scrub cap and even that is soon lost in a sea of ever-shifting bodies.

So, he sits down, only to jump up again almost immediately as the unmistakable figure of Lance Hunter rushes through the hospital doors.

Hunter spots Mack and runs over. “Where’s Bobbi?” he blurts.

“In surgery.” Mack watches the blood drain from Hunter’s face before adding, “But she and the baby are fine. They did a C-section.”

Lance swallows hard and nods, taking the seat next to his old acquaintance.

“I’m a father,” he realizes aloud.

“Congratulations,” Mack replies dryly.

 

Bobbi wakes up in her hospital room again. But there is only one beeping monitor. She looks around for Mack, finding him in the seat next to her. “Where….”

“The baby is fine. It’s a girl. Hunter is with her.”

“Hunter?”

Mack shrugs. “He flew in.”

Bobbi stores this information away carefully, mind boomeranging back to what really matters.

“Can I see her?”

Mack seems unsure at best. “You had to have major surgery. They had to…”

“I don’t care. I want to see my baby.”

As the words exit her mouth, Lance enters the room with a pink bundle in his arms. He passes the parcel off to her, smiling.

“She has your eyes,” Hunter says. “Lucky girl looks just like her mother.”

“I think she has your hair,” Bobbi replies. It’s a little darker, like his, but still blondish.

She and Hunter just look at their baby for a while after that.

Then, “What should we name her?” Bobbi asks. “I’ve been thinking about it, but nothing seems right.”

“Uh… Barbra Jr?”

Bobbi shakes her head. No way was she subjecting a child to the horror that is the name ‘Barbra’.

“Poppy?”

“I like the flower, but it’s too….”

“British? She _is_ half English, but I do see what you mean.” Hunter thinks about it for another couple of minutes, staring at the perfect face in Bobbi’s arms. “Lily,” he decides.

“ _Lily_ ,” Bobbi says, testing the world out on her tongue. It’s nice. “Perfect. Lily Amelia Morse-Hunter.”


	2. Code Amber (Death Is A Relative Condition)

They have less than twenty-four hours with their daughter before the unthinkable happens.

A nurse takes her away so Bobbi can sleep, practically prying Lily from her mother’s arms. But Bobbi isn’t afraid yet, and Lance seems to know this nurse because he comments on her flowered scrub cap.

She’s tired. Exhausted, really, and everyone is telling her to sleep. So, that’s what Bobbi does.

When she wakes up the hospital is on “Code Amber” and her baby is gone.

The rest is blurs.

There are lights and sounds and police and then SHIELD gets involved but they still cannot find her.

Hunter and Mack help them search and Bobbi wants to but the stupid son of a bitch doctor says she can’t.

Of course, Morse tries to anyway, but she just ends up in surgery again.

When the haze of drugs wears off, her mind feels clearer. Clean, almost. Hunter and Mack are there, Hunter’s eyes rimmed with red.

If Bobbi didn’t know better, she’d say he had been crying.

“Did you find her?”

Solemnly, Mack shakes his head. “She must have been taken out of the hospital.”

Bobbi feels wet tears start to threaten the boarder of her eyes and face. She holds Hunter’s hand for a while, searching for a piece of the child they lost.

She can’t find anything.

Then the nurses give her more pain meds and she falls back into oblivion.

 

The nurse/intern in the flower scrub cap does not like children. Not at all. In her mind, children just about equal to cockroaches. Actually, they’re worse. At least roaches don’t make noise.

But, when your boss tells you to abduct a kid, you do it. No questions asked. They _are_ in a recession, after all. Jobs are hard to come by.

Especially for people in her line of work.

She gets to the car without incident. No one really notices a nurse, especially one carrying a baby, and a new mother is even less visible. A quick change of clothes in the bathroom stall and no one even glances in her direction.

Flower cap becomes flower shirt and jeans.

Waiting in the van is the Clairvoyant’s liaison. He gives Raina her new assignment, looking at the baby with even more disgust than she feels.

It’s impressive.

“Use it for Centipede.”

 

There are more false starts over the next few days, but Bobbi eventually wakes up for good. There are more police, more questions.

Yet no answers.

Eventually, Bobbi heals. Mack takes her back to the base. Hunter visits and they plot ways to get Lily back. She is still out there, waiting for them to find her.

Some days, it is the only reason why she can get up in the morning.

Hunter stops drinking, to his service. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, he is focusing on getting the people who did this.

Morse is almost the same as him, only she also has to go on missions for Fury. But her heart is never there anymore. It was taken the day they took Lily.

Even Mack is changed, though Bobbi thinks it’s due to the memories this has brought back. Every spare second is spent with Hunter and Bobbi, trying to figure out where their girl is.

It is not healthy. Everyone, even they can see it.

But caring is a whole different matter.

“It could have been those mercenaries we pissed off in Prague,” Hunter suggests. His face is haggard and unshaven, his eyes bloodshot. Lance’s hands grip a mug of coffee like it is the only thing keeping him alive.

“No, no. We went back and killed them.” Bobbi shakes her head. She is dressed in her Mockingbird suit, batons in hand. She’s ready to fight pretty much anyone, has been for weeks.

“How about the Salamander dude?” Mack suggests, head in hands. “He certainly didn’t like us.”

“Went back and arrested him.”

This is basically the extent of their conversations over the next three months. The men suggest people who may have taken Lily, Bobbi points out why it couldn’t be them.

Though, even this is better than when there are more people surrounding them. Whispers that follow the trio around the base, theories about what had happened to Lily. That Fury killed or abducted or sold her. That Bobbi and Lance faked the whole thing so that she could have a normal childhood. Even that she had been part of some mass infant genocide.

Hunter gets into more than a couple fights with the perpetrators. Morse wants to beat some of them over the head with her batons, but settles for stony glares instead. However, nothing changes until Mack decides to take matters into his own hands and resurrects the old shotgun-axe, albeit with a lot of duct tape.

It shuts them all up pretty quickly.

Then, on the three month anniversary of their daughter’s birth and kidnapping, it’s like the veil is parted. Bobbi can finally really see what has happened to them.

They are all so much more broken than they were before.

Hunter does not sleep. Maybe an hour a night, just enough to keep himself alive and breathing. Certainly not enough to keep him healthy. Though, that does not seem to be a priority these days. The only thing he cares about is finding Lily. His job, his sanity, is life all no longer matter to him.

Mack is scared and pissed off. He walks around with a fully-equipped shotgun-axe, ready and willing to swing it at anyone in the vicinity. Just that morning, he almost took a cadet’s head off because the scientist talked above a whisper.

Without apologizing, Mack stomps off, muttering viciously about weird twin geniuses who finish each other’s sentences.

Bobbi herself is not much better. She’s constantly preoccupied, thinking about her daughter and the bastards who took her. What they were doing to her. Why they needed her. Why they even wanted her in the first place. It never ended because they would never have closure.

They would never find her.

She makes a decision then, not one that she is proud of, but something she feels she has to do.

For their sake.

Bobbi has to put an end to the pain. But, to do so, she has to put an end to the search.

 

Bobbi sits Hunter and Mack down, her face breaking. Tears start falling of their own accord.

She does not have to say it to Mack, he already knows, can already read her face. Strong arms wrap around her, and he puts down his shotgun-axe for the first time in a week.

Lance does not even react until the words come out of her mouth. “She’s dead.” Even then, it takes a moment for the news to compute.

And, being Hunter, he jumps straight to the bottom of a bottle. Bobbi and Mack partake in this ritual for a couple of days.

Then they all go their own ways.

Hunter… he returns to his life as a mercenary, making more than enough money to drink however much he wants. Their daughter is just a blip in his history, especially considering he has only known of her existence for a few months.

Mack takes a job on the Iliad as an engineer. Morse knows within a few years they’ll promote him to the chief, deservedly. It’s a good move, on his part. Planning for a future. Distancing himself from everything. With time, he will be the old Mack again.

That’s all she can hope for him.

Bobbi was staying behind, at least for a while. She has cases to finish. But, as soon as they’re done, Morse is getting a transfer.

Like the others, she needs a fresh start.

 

Raina walks through the halls of Centipede's newest project with a broken little smirk plastered on her face. She'd been relieved of the child at the door, so that it could be decontaminated and she could change.

But, now, it's back in her possession, crying and sniffling and doing other things Raina doesn't care to think about.

She completes the, sadly mandatory, checkup. They had to make sure the kid would live, because what was the point if she didn't? It would just be a waste. A waste of what could be their breakthrough, according to the data they were getting from the others.

But the kid is fine. Unexpectedly, given the manner in which she entered the world. Every organ functioning optimally, every cell intact.

She was strong, this one, and her genes would make this even more interesting.

"She'll do," Raina tells a nurse, who nods and takes the kid away. "Tell them to bring me Number 3. I think he's ready for a Centipede."


	3. Is It You? (We've Met Once Before And You've Changed So)

The next time Bobbi sees Hunter, a lot has changed.

Fury is "dead".

Hydra has taken over SHIELD.

Alien demi-gods fall from the sky and fight with super soldiers, agents, billionaires in iron suits and green rage monsters. They protect the world.

Bobbi's dyed her hair.

Still, there is one constant. Morse has no leads on their daughter; she hasn't told Hunter the girl might be alive.

Guilt comes in a series of waves. First, it is constant, like the pain will never go away. But, slowly, it starts to recede, just a little at a time. And, with yet more time, it becomes almost manageable, until something threatens to send another wave crashing down. Through trial and time, Bobbi learns the best way to control this guilt is to stay away from triggers. People who speculated about their daughter's whereabouts. Things she imagined them doing together. Little girls with darkish blonde hair and green eyes.

Hunter is a trigger.

And as soon as Morse sees him, ten waves of bone-breaking regret crash into her simultaneously.

But she is an agent and she knows how to deflect like one. Instead of talking, she picks a fight. It isn't hard. Hunter is more than adept at hating her already.

The part Bobbi had forgotten, the place she had slipped up, was not mentioning _her_. Hunter expected it, he was ready, and instead of punching him with the "this is why I didn't tell you about our daughter in the first place" line, she held back. And now Hunter had to know why.

He corners her while she's talking to Simmons, knowing Bobbi is far too preoccupied with the scientist to wonder why Hunter of all people is stalking around the room like a cat waiting to pounce.

Then, "Bobbi," he interrupts.

"What, Hunter?" Instinctively, Bobbi crosses her arms.

"We need to talk… about Lily."

Jemma, still standing at Bobbi's elbow, peers at them each in turn. She looks mildly interested, as this is a foreign name to her and to the other ten agents in the room. Bobbi knows this because she just counted the intruding faces and ticked off the beats of silence.

"Not here."

"What, you don't want them to know about _our daughter_?" Lance raises his voice on the last two words, making certain that this isn't an option for his ex-wife.

"Hunter…" Bobbi starts warningly. "Just… not now. _Please_."

Lance shakes his head in disgust as he stomps away.

 

They never do get to have that talk about Lily. Bobbi can only be thankful about that, because if they did her secret would certainly come out.

Both agents throw themselves into their work, separately. They each take almost every case that comes their way, often after inquiring where the other was. The ex-spouses manage to never cross paths until the day Coulson makes them.

"We've got a powered person in New York. It looks like Centipede's old signature. I need you, Hunter and Skye on the case," the director tells Bobbi quickly. Coulson looks hassled and sleep deprived, probably rightly so, and he moves on to more important things before Bobbi can tell him this is a mistake.

"I'll get Hunter," says Skye, surprising Bobbi. She hadn't known the brunette was standing at her shoulder until she spoke up.

Bobbi nods in the most agent way possible, taking off to get the Zephyr One ready. She'll be the flying it, after all.

It's quiet in the hangar. Not the kind there was when Lance became the first person to say "Lily" on-base, but the type that comes from being left completely alone. Sure, there are people surrounding her, but Bobbi does not interact with them, does not utter a single word.

In her mind, there is absolute chaos. She's running out the door, coffee cup in one hand and a child's lunch box in the other. This is where she'd be, if her child was here.

Or, at least, that's what she tells herself.

Would she have given up SHIELD, though? Would it have been enough? Would Hunter have been enough?

The only thing to answer her is the hum of the Zephyr as she starts the engine.

 

"Oh, _hell_ no," Hunter says when he sees Bobbi in the cockpit.

"Coulson wants you both on the case. Nothing we can do about it," Skye says decisively. She's almost like the Director's left hand, if May's the right one.

And that puts an end to that.

 

They find the Enhanced in an abandoned factory.

In the corner of an upstairs room, possibly what used to be an office, sits a little girl. She has done okay for herself, especially for someone that young. There is food, however little, and a makeshift bed of blankets.

While Bobbi scans the building for guards, Hunter tries to talk to the girl. She's maybe seven and scared. Very scared.

"Hello, sweetheart. Can you tell us your name?" Lance asks softly, taking a knee to get down to her level.

The girl shakes her head sharply once, then backs herself against the wall. She's holding an old, dirty teddy bear. It's missing an ear.

Before he can ask why, Skye comes in, looking questioningly at Bobbi and then the girl.

"Her arm," Morse mutters, pointing to what she and Lance noticed on sight.

She sees the orange centipede running up the girl's forearm, but Skye manages to keep her face neutral. Her eyes do widen, slightly, as she realizes one of the spikes is almost disconnected from the skin and pokes the bear right at its neck, but she doesn't audibly react until it dawns on her that the girl's eyes are yellow where they should be white.

"We need to take her in. Now."

Hunter, who has been watching Skye's reaction as intently as Bobbi has, nods lightly before turning back to the girl. "Hey, we want to take you somewhere safe. Is that okay?"

There is a small pause before she nods.

"Can you get you things together while me and my mates phone someone?"

She nods again, faster this time.

"Good. We're going to be just outside, don't worry." His smile spans a single second and leaves the small room with Skye and Bobbi.

When he turns back to them, the smile is gone. "Call Coulson. And Simmons. Tell her to be ready. The powered is a little girl and she's ill."

 

Skye has just hung up with Coulson when they hear a smash, followed by a crunch. All three agents run to the room, only to find the wall punched through. The hole is just big enough for a small seven-year-old to jump out of.

Through it, they see the girl is running down the alley below with a black backpack and an oversized hoodie covering her face and arms.

"She's headed west," Skye shouts, running from the room.

Bobbi and Hunter glance at each other before following. The girl was seven with dark blonde hair and green eyes. It touched a nerve with both of them.

"Hunter…" Bobbi starts.

"Bobbi, now is really not the time," Lance tells her, quickening to a sprint.

"It's never the time with you." And Morse starts running faster, too.

They storm out of the building, managing to intercept the girl at the end of the next alley by splitting up.

"You don't have to be afraid. We're the good guys," Bobbi promises.

This does nothing to stop the girl. She scales one of the walls, punching through the bricks to get handholds.

"We need an extraction team on the roof," Skye orders into her COM.

"There are stairs around the back."

Bobbi starts tearing through the building, leading them up onto the roof as fast as the girl can climb.

She is about to jump onto the adjacent rooftop when the plane arrives, kicking up a wind that makes her hair blow directly at her face. This gives Morse the second she needs. Bobbi dives, grabbing the girl around the waist before she can bolt again, fighting against her strength.

So the girl starts screaming. Loudly.

Bobbi is startled enough to let go, but by this time the other agents are in position. Both she and the girl are surrounded. Neither are going anywhere.

Yet she continues screaming, stalking around the circle as if daring someone to try grabbing her again.

"Hey, hey, honey," Lance intervenes, picking up the girl's stuffed animal, which she'd dropped during the chase. "Looking for this?" He gives her the bear delicately; she snatches it away before bringing it close to her chest.

 _At least she stopped screaming_ , Bobbi thinks.

 

Simmons has been prepping the lab for the past ten minutes. Now, the girl is here and she has no idea what the hell she's supposed to do next.

Interacting with children isn't something any of them do often, but Jemma's trying her best.

"Hello, sweetheart," Jemma beams, bending down to look the girl in the eyes. "Do you want to sit on my super-cool desk chair?"

The child nods slowly, only breaking character to give her a gap-toothed smile. It disappears almost immediately, but Simmons senses something oddly familiar about it.

In place of dithering over it, Simmons opts to play a kid-friendly TV show on her computer and move to the corner, where Coulson is now waiting for a report.

"The jaundice is most likely a sign her liver is failing. We need to find the cause and stop it. I'm also worried about the lack of speech. It could be an indicator of more severe mental issues."

"Do you think she is a threat?"

Simmons looks back at the girl, who is resting her head on the table. "Sir… I think that she is a scared, confused little girl with no idea what is going on and a severe medical case. We need to heal her. Then we can worry about whether or not she is a threat."

The Director just nods. "Anything you need."

"Thank you, sir."

 

It falls to Jemma and Lance, the only ones who've had proper contact with the girl, take care of her for the night. Simmons starts by taking blood.

She expects the girl to shrink away, perhaps hiss at her, but her arm falls limp in the scientist's hand and she allows the needle to puncture her skin. It doesn't elicit a reaction.

Jemma doesn't want to think about what this means, what tests have been conducted on this girl that make her immune to something that makes most her age terrified. Then she sees the Centipede again and realizes there are far worse things than needles.

After passing off the samples to a lab tech she trusts is competent on alternate Wednesdays, Simmons takes the girl to the shower. She won't let Simmons go in with her, but she throws out her clothing and when she emerges her hair is wet and she smells like soap. Dressed in one of Skye's old t-shirts and a pair of leggings Simmons found in her bag, she looks almost cute. Then the empty expression turns and meets Jemma's eyes, and she just feels cold.

While this was happening, Hunter placed an extra cot in Jemma's room. Her blankets Skye took to wash with the rest of her clothes. But the girl does not seem to mind so long as she has her stuffed animal and backpack.

Upon seeing the cot, she lifts up a corner of the white sheet draped over it and crawls between the sheets. Her eyes close immediately, but she is not yet asleep.

It isn't until her breathing slows that Lance speaks directly to Simmons. "She reminds me of Lily."

Simmons looks at him pityingly. "Having a kid and losing them… I can't imagine how hard that must be."

"Yeah well, at least we have closure or something like that." He turns and leaves.

Simmons is about to follow him when she turns back, making a point to turn off the lights.

At the last second, she locks the door from the outside.

 

Jemma goes down to the laundry room, where she knows Skye is washing the girl's clothes. She had three sets in all, all dirty and oversized, as well as a couple of blankets. There are small trinkets in the girl's bag as well: a dented thimble, a blue pen, a worn copy of one of the Baby-Sitters Club books with tiny blue writing in the margin, a purple plastic elephant, a miniature globe and ten cents. It's all stored in a small tin box the girl had with her.

"It's awfully sad," Jemma tells Skye, who is sitting on the edge of the dryer, waiting to help her fold the clothes. "This is all she has in the world. Centipede took everything else. _We_ took everything else."

"Jemma, this isn't our fault."

"But it is, Skye. We took down Centipede and in doing so, left this child alone. She's been on her own for almost a year because of what we did."

"If we'd have known Centipede had a kid, we would have done something. We would have taken her in like we did now."

Simmons just shakes her head. "Then why do I still feel so… _guilty_?"

"We all do, Jemma. You and me and Coulson and May and Fitz. Hell, I bet even Ward feels a twinge of something in his cold, dead heart. But that's not going to help anyone, especially not her."

Simmons sighs. "You're right, as always."

"Of course I am. _What_ would you do without me?" Skye laughs, jumping down to kiss Jemma softly.

 

Bobbi watches the girl rest on a cot in Jemma's room. She looks just like Bobbi had at that age, though a little thinner and with darker hair. Maybe shorter, too, though Morse isn't completely sure on that front. Then there's the orange and silver Centipede fused to her arm. It's almost bigger than the arm itself and the pattern of scaring around the device indicates it was most likely implanted about three years ago. When the girl was only four years old.

The thought breaks her heart.

Somewhere, deep inside of her, Bobbi knows this is her daughter.

And that her lie is coming back to bite her in the ass.

Mack comes up behind her, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. "It's her, isn't it?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah, Mack. I think it is."


	4. A Girl Is Sick (But She Will Not Be Weak, As You Want Her To Be)

Day comes slower than Simmons would prefer, but it does eventually come, and with it comes a battery of tests. She starts with the easy things: height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate. Then come more blood draws, MRIs, CTs and anything else Jemma can get her hands on.

The results come around and Simmons isn’t surprised that what she finds is… not good. The girl’s liver is shot, her kidneys are close to failing and the stress on her other organs is inching closer to killing her every day.

And then the real discovery comes to pass.

The piece of paper in her hands shows something Simmons knows shouldn’t be possible. Only… yes, it is, and this truth sends Simmons running out of her lab.

She hands the girl off to Skye somewhere down the corridor, not giving her a word. The scientist is truly thankful her girlfriend knows better than to ask Simmons is in a state like this, but she doesn’t have time to thank her.

Jemma finds herself outside Coulson’s door, knocking and not sure how she got there. Her fist sounds on the wooden door, loud and quick, and she enters without waiting for him to acknowledge her.

“She’s Bobbi and Hunter’s daughter,” Simmons blurts out, almost incoherently. Behind her, the door clicks shut, startling the scientist into action.

She goes forward in a flurry of movement, passing May and somehow managing to slap the now-wrinkled results onto Coulson’s desk.

“She’s Bobbi and Hunter’s daughter. Sir.”

There’s a small pause in which the only sound is Simmons’s breath.

May is the one to break it. “The one who was abducted?”

Nodding franticly, Simmons has to take a deep breath before adding, “Bobbi told Hunter she was killed.”

Coulson lets out a slow breath. “Just when I thought we were done with family drama.”

This statement is odd, but Simmons barely hears it over the pounding in her ears. May, on the other hand, crosses her arms.

“Sir, there’s something else. Centipede never stabilized the serum, and if _we_ don’t soon, her liver is in danger of failing.”

“And you need parental consent. For the file.”

Simmons nods quickly. “But it’s not just that, sir. She’s going to need a support system. People to help her regulate her power. Teach her. Lover her.”

“She’s part of the family. We’ll watch out for her,” May says quickly.

Coulson doesn’t argue.

“Sir. May.” The scientist turns quickly, ready to run back to the lab.

“And, Simmons? Get the consent from Agent Morse first. And please advise her, friend to friend, to tell Hunter as soon as possible.”

“Of course, sir.”

 

Simmons has never done this before.

It’s actually not that surprising, if you think about it. She’s never done a lot of things (though that number has certainly shrunk since she started dating Skye) and telling someone their presumed-dead child is actually alive, let alone that this child was treated as a science experiment and now needed medical attention… well, that was something that doesn’t happen every day.

Jemma doesn’t even know where to begin.

She finds Bobbi in the gym, running her problems away without actually moving forward. Despite the severity of the situation, Simmons finds herself hovering by the door, unwilling to step forward and set in motion a series of events she has no real control over.

The snowball effect is real. Hydra taught her that.

They also taught her that time doesn’t wait for the weary.

Luckily for both her and the girl, Bobbi already seems to know what Simmons means to say.

“She’s Lily.” It isn’t a question.

Jemma nods quickly (her neck is getting cramped), trying to move on to the harder aspect of things.

She takes a deep breath. “The Centipede on her arm is extremely unstable. It could explode at any second. Lily seems to have been unconsciously self-regulating, but in doing so is putting tremendous strain on her body.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Bobbi asks sharply, taking a scary step inward.

“Yes! Well… most likely. I need consent to perform a procedure that will stabilize the serum.”

“Do it,” Morse responds immediately.

“I… I need to make sure you understand the risks beforehand. There is a chance that the strain will put her into organ failure. Possibly multiple organs at once. Her liver and kidneys are the closest to failing, in which case she could receive a transplant from a living donor. But if anything else goes she’ll need to be placed on the waiting list.”

Bobbi swallows hard.

“There is also a small chance that, given her already compromised health, Lily could die. Immediately,” Simmons adds apologetically.

“And… what if you don’t stabilize the serum?”

Jemma looks down. “The strain would cause her to go into multi-organ failure, which would mean that she would eventually become too weak to keep her body and the serum and—”

“I’ve read the files,” Bobbi cuts her off. She sits down, putting her head in her hands. “You have to do it then, don’t you? Yes.”

 

Bobbi Morse isn’t sure where to begin.

After dragging Hunter into her bunk (and ignoring his cries of “I’m not doing this again, Bobbi.”), she closes the door and waits. One second, two. Her back is against the doorframe, getting hit with cold air from behind, but she doesn’t mind.

“I don’t want to—“

“God, Hunter. I don’t want to have sex with you. I need to—just… give me a second….” Would waiting help? No. Nothing would. So, she just got on with it. “I lied. She isn’t—they didn’t tell me she was dead. They didn’t tell me anything. They couldn’t find her. Lily’s—”

And Hunter is flying out of the room, headed straight for Simmons’ bunk, where Skye has their daughter.

She follows.

Then she watches.

Lance crouches down, looking into her eyes, which are so much like Bobbi’s. She’s tall, too. But there is something of him in her smile.

Lily smiles now, as Lance plops down next to her and pulls out his phone.

“Hunter… I—”

“Not now, Bobbi,” he says sharply, more harsh than even Bobbi has ever heard him speak.

She watches Skye leave the room, presumably to go find Jemma and figure out what the hell is happening.

When they are alone, Bobbi joins him on the floor. “She needs a procedure.” She says it quietly, hoping the girl won’t hear.

“What kind of procedure?”

“Something to stabilize it.” She looks pointedly at the bulge under the arm of Lily’s sweatshirt.

“Do I get a say in this?”

Bobbi shakes her head, smiling down at the girl, who’s very obviously winning whatever game they’re playing. She is oblivious to their anger. “I talked to Simmons. She can brief you during prep.”

Hunter laughs, high and fake. “You won! And I will. But don’t think you’re getting away with this.”

Morse sighs. The arguments and fear were only just beginning.

But so was their life (however short lived it might be) with their daughter.

 

Simmons comes by a couple of minutes later and all four troop down to the labs in a mournful parade.

The Brit takes Hunter aside to explain the whole thing while Morse gets Lily—if she even wanted to be called Lily—attached to the monitors.

She decides to ask one more time. Now that Lily had been with them for the night, maybe she would feel more comfortable. Maybe she would talk. “Do you want to tell me your name, sweetie?”

The girl shakes her head.

Bobbi wasn’t sure if that meant she didn’t have one or she just didn’t want to tell her.

“That’s okay. Are you comfortable?”

The girl nods, resting her small head against the hard exam table. She’s definitely lying, but Bobbi decides to let it go. She would say the same thing.

Simmons comes over, nodding at Bobbi. “You’re going to have to leave for this part, sorry.”

“Just… take care of her. Please.”

Jemma smiles weakly. She didn’t ask for this, didn’t ask to be dragged into their drama. But she was here now and she was going to do her best.

“Of course.”

 

Bobbi paces outside, watching through the glass. “Jemma just gave her a sedative.”

Lance is leaning against the wall, unwilling to watch, eyes closed for good measure.

“Why did you lie to me?” he asks weakly, sliding down the wall. “We could have found her, before….”

Bobbi shakes her head, still watching. “It’s just starting to kick in.”

“Answer me dammit!” Hunter’s voice cracks as his body hits the ground.

“We were ripping ourselves apart. We couldn’t take another fall. It needed to end.” She sighs. “Simmons is preparing the anti-serum.”

“You don’t tell a man his child is _dead_ because it’s a little _hard_!”

“Look, can we do this later? She’s about to inject our daughter with the—” She stops as Hunter gets up and presses his nose into the glass right next to her.

They watch with bated breath as Simmons carefully pushes the needle into the first line of Centipede.

Lily spasms, her heart rate jumping ten BPM in a millisecond. But, at the same time, it jumps back down. Jemma does this to every piece of the centipede, so they have to watch the process seven times in all.

Every time, their little girl gets more rundown. As her stats inch downwards, they watch her face pale, her lips chap, her hands start to tremble. Jemma has to physically hold her arm down to administer the last shot. By then, the jaundice is starting to set in.

“Is she going to need a transplant?” Lance asks, looking at Bobbi. She’s the one with a biology degree, after all. “She’s jaundiced… that means she needs a transplant. Right?”

Morse shakes her head. “It might not. With the Centipede, she has accelerated healing. And the liver is the only organ that regenerates itself.” She crosses her fingers, hoping beyond hope that she is right.

 

Simmons checks the girl’s vitals one last time before exiting the lab to update the parents. This is not the part she looks forward to. This isn’t even a part she usually _does_.

“Lily’s doing well. She should wake up in a couple of hours. It’s possible she’ll even miss the worst of the pain.”

“What about the jaundice?” Hunter’s hands are fidgeting. It almost looks like an attempt to cover the way they’re trembling.

“Actually, that looks as though it may pass. We’re obviously going to monitor her in a closed environment until her liver is completely functional again. Other than that, she did amazing.” The scientist snaps off her gloves. “Fitz is going to be watching her while I run some labs, but you can go sit in there if you want. She’ll be awake soon.”

They file inside without thanking the scientist.

 

Up close, it Lily looks slightly better. The yellow tinge that had diffused across her skin didn’t look nearly as aggressive. Instead of resembling a corpse, Lily looked almost like she could be sleeping. Peacefully.

The only things subtracting from the image are her trembling hands, the sudden cries of pain and flares of orange in her veins. Not to mention the Centipede fused to her arm. In a way, because of the shifting and moving, it almost looks like the insect-shaped device is crawling across Lily’s skin.

Bobbi reminds herself it could be much worse.

Instinctively, each parent takes one of her hands, wrapping their fingers around her shorter ones. They’re cold, but alive. It’s a weird feeling, after all these years. So much they had missed.

Bobbi looks up at Hunter, studying the look on his face. Seeing the pure joy and fierce protectiveness in his stare, she briefly wonders why she’d thought he was unfit to be a parent. But there’s sadness there, too, and she knows that’s partially her fault.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you,” Bobbi admits.

She blames herself for the lost moments, rightly. If it hadn’t been for her, they would never have stopped looking. They might have found her earlier, before they did this to her.

“Yeah. You shouldn’t have,” Lance replies, caught up in the hurt.

 _He_ cannot stop thinking about all that Lily must have endured, growing up in that lab. An experiment.

Fitz enters, Mack following in his wake. The mechanic slides over a chair next to Bobbi’s, sitting down. “Is she going to be okay?”

“P-ph… in her body she will be fine,” Fitz says, forgetting his words. “Her um… brain c-could go either way.”

Mack nods slowly, giving Fitz the time to find his words. “Good. And have you told her yet?” The question is directed to a space somewhere between Bobbi and Hunter.

“No,” Lance replies.

“But we’re going to when she wakes up.”

Suddenly, the girl’s eyes snap open. “Tell me what?” she asks.


	5. In This Place We Know Nothing (I'm Not Ready To Be Yours)

It's too soon. They have no idea what to say (somehow "Hey, we're your parents. Sorry we stopped looking for you, your mother faked your death" doesn't seem very appealing).

Yet there is no time left. Lily fights off Fitz's attempts at being a doctor too easily, and his penlight ends up flying across the room before anyone can react. Bobbi knows that there will be a dent in the wall even before it falls to the ground in a ball of metal.

 _Good to know she has her strength under control._ Bobbi starts to step forward, but Lance's hand is there to hold her back.

"It w-was Jemma's," Leo informs them impassively. He writes down some numbers, occasionally glancing at the monitors, before retreating quickly. "T-talk," is his final order, but Bobbi's pretty sure she's the only one who hears it.

Throughout this all, Lily is throwing around looks that would be threatening, if she wasn't seven. Although, the idea that she could reduce a pen to a twisted clump of metal without thought—without _trying_ —brings back some of the fear.

They can see the exact moment something clicks with the girl, because she drops the look and starts playing with a lock of her hair. Then she glances at Lance's and Bobbi understands what she's doing.

"You know, I think you have your father's hair," Morse says, studying every inch of the girl's body language, trying not a be afraid of her reaction.

Mack, Bobbi is glad, catches on quickly. "And your mom's eyes."

They both look at Lance. Perhaps, Bobbi thinks, Mack's throat is shut, like hers is. Perhaps he, too, cannot _think_ , let alone think of something to say.

"Did they give you a name?" Hunter asks, voice a low monotone unlike the other's forced cheeriness. He has no intention of pretending; Bobbi should respect him for that, but mostly she wants to shut him down, shut them all out and keep pretending.

But, far before Bobbi is ready, the girl starts shaking her head. It's a small motion, a heartbreaking little twist of her neck.

"Do you want to know what we named you?"

For a minute, there is no sound, no movement other than the beeping machines and the lines going up and down on the monitor. The seven-year-old watches them for a bit, obviously weighing the options.

Eventually, she nods.

Hunter does not pause. "Lily. Like the flower. I was thinking Poppy, but your mum thought it was too British. I'm from England. I'd like to take you there one day." Lance goes off on a tangent about what they could do if they ever visited London.

Lily hangs on to every word.

Bobbi hopes that his words are like a validation. That these words will make it certain to her—to all of them—that Lily was Taken. Not lost or misplaced or _given_. She was stolen, and now she was returned.

"Can we call you Lily?" Bobbi asks at one point. Her face is painted with hope.

The girl— _Lily_ nods.

 

Coulson doesn't waste a second. "Do I need to command a hospital?" are his first words to Simmons and Skye when they enter his office.

"No, sir," Simmons tells him carefully. "Not that I can tell, anyway." She glances at Skye, who looks downright baffled. It makes sense that Simmons is here—she's Lily's doctor, now, apparently—but Skye has no connection to the girl.

"I'm sending you to the cabin. With Hunter and Bobbi."

Skye glances at Simmons. Both women have no idea what 'cabin' Coulson's referring to.

Catching their confusion, he explains, "It's a kind of half-way house for powered people. Banner and Agent Rogers both spent some time there when Fury was director."

"But… why me, sir?" Skye asks. She gets why Jemma is going, but her? She's a field agent, not a scientist. (She refuses to think this might be the point.)

"I need an agent there in case things go sour," he says, omitting the obvious fact that Hunter and Bobbi were both agents. In truth, if any of his other agents dared question his judgment, Coulson would have told them to get the hell out of his office. But since it was Skye, the director knew it was curiosity, not insubordination. "You leave as soon as the girl's stable enough to transport."

Simmons looks down at her phone, which she's been trying to ignore but is now buzzing persistently. Skye can make out 'Fitz' is the sender before the screen unlocks.

"It seems that will be about an hour, sir. She's just woken up."

 

The next fifty minutes are a blur of clothes and food and medical equipment. And weapons, one cannot forget the weapons. Batons and ICERS and even a couple of real guns—just in case.

Skye packs her laptop first. Even now that she was officially a field agent, her computer was a huge part of who she was. She stares past the denim and looks at all of the plaid buried at the bottom of her drawers. It's been a while since she's worn any of it.

She throws some in and keeps on going.

Simmons does not have such pause. She just empties a random drawer in a bag and leaves to get what really matters: the medical equipment. A travel CT, more of the stabilizing drug, anti-rejection meds (because she's paranoid, sometimes) and just about everything else she could get her hands on. Fitz helps her get some lab equipment, forgetting his anger in all the chaos.

And, through all this, Hunter and Bobbi do not say a word to each other. They make a silent agreement to take turns packing so that one of them will be with their daughter at all times.

They're not about to lose her again.

 

Lily is the most confused by everything. She doesn't say it, but Bobbi can see the question in her eyes as she looks around at the people rushing in and out of the previously deserted lab.

"We're going away, for a while. So no one can us."

Lily nods. She understands how dire the situation is. Centipede may be gone, but that definitely didn't mean they were safe.

 

Twenty minutes later, Simmons is checking off the last item on her (extensive) list when she realizes Lily needs clothes. More clothes, that is. In sizes made for seven-year-old girls and not teenagers.

A quick word to Coulson and she and Skye are off to the nearest superstore—a Target—in Skye's van.

"So, you lived here?" Jemma asks. She's sitting shotgun, as Skye wouldn't let her drive, even though she's the one with a license. "It's nice."

Skye laughs once. "I know it's not your _style_."

She's right, of course. Only Skye would think to drive around in a purple van while on the run; only she would furnish its interior with neon-blue carpet.

"Yeah. I kinda stole it from some guy in Chicago." Skye smirks, remembering the look on his face as she had driven away. It'd been white, then, with paint half-empty paint cans in the back, all the same color: her-van-purple.

"Always with the bad-girl shenanigans."

They reach their destination and walk hurriedly across the parking lot, then into the store and down the children's isle with a random shopping cart. They're the only people here, and for good reason. It's nine o'clock on a Tuesday night and the sun is long gone.

"What size is she?' Skye asks, looking at a red and black flannel shirt.

"Um… extra small, I think. She's tiny." Jemma is more interested in some cardigans.

"And seven. Children's sizes work differently. I think it goes by years."

"Well, seven then," Simmons replies.

Skye sighs, frustrated. "They have six/seven and seven/eight."

"Try seven/eight. She's kind of tall. And the… thing needs room." Jemma adds the last part in a whisper.

Skye nods, happy they have that part down at least. "Next time, we need to think this through."

"I doubt there will be a next time. It's not very often this kind of thing happened. Not even with SHIELD."

They continue wandering the section, each trying to steer the other away from their vices. Simmons has to remove three flannel shirts from the cart and Skye two blouses. The pair try to get what items similar to what they have already seen Lily wearing, namely leggings and long-sleeved t-shirts. After getting a couple of each, they move on to pajamas, getting two pairs, and underwear. Then, they pick up a couple of skirts and a pair of jeans in case Lily felt like branching out.

At the last minute, Skye gets her another hoodie ("Just in case") while Simmons throws in a toothbrush and hairbrush. They buy everything in cash and leave as abruptly as they arrived.

 

Lily starts to feel exited, in spite of herself. It's an adventure, almost like something out of a book or movie. A very weird one, definitely, but still.

Dr. Simmons removes all of the monitors from her skin and gives Lily her jacket back. It's clean, like it was just washed, which is an old feeling she'd all but forgotten. She tries to smile thankfully, shrugging the black hoodie back on before jumping down from the bed and following Jemma out of the lab. She still feels a little weak, but the pounding in her head has gone away, along with some of the pain in her abdomen. All in all, Lily feels better than she has in a while.

They board a plane, where Skye and Hunter are waiting. Bobbi is sitting in the cockpit, ready to fly the thing (which is amazingly cool, in Lily's opinion). Hunter and Skye are strapped in next to the bay with a small pile of all the boxes and suitcases they had packed. Lily sees her backpack and immediately grabs it.

There is also a bluish-purple van in the cargo bay. She guesses it is for if they have to go somewhere or leave quickly. Lily likes the color.

"Do you want to sit up here with me?" Bobbi asks, referring to the co-pilots seat.

Lily nods, buckling herself into the chair quickly. Within minutes, she's out. Like a light with no battery.

 

A few hours later, Bobbi begins their decent. They land in a small clearing, about half a mile from the cabin, with enough trees to provide cover for the Zephyr.

Hunter carries Lily to the van, buckling her in carefully, then goes to help the others fit the three suitcases and five boxes of medical equipment in the back. The two parents sit in the back with Simmons acting as a buffer between them.

Skye, her duffle bag stowed neatly next to her old desk, drives smoothly down to the cabin. While Hunter and Bobbi take Lily and her things, she and Simmons do the rest.

She realizes Coulson must have sent someone ahead to prep the place, because surely somewhere invented to keep the likes of Steve Rogers safe would not have a bedroom perfectly furnished for a seven-year-old.

Skye smiles, because this was a Coulson they had not seen for a while. It was nice to know he was still in there.

Simmons pulls her back to reality, opening the fridge and starting to put some of the perishable foods inside. Skye takes care of the boxes and cans. The girlfriends do their work silently, finding there was nothing that really needed to be said. Both felt like intruders upon this family's reunion.

 

Hunter lays Lily down on the bed, removing the backpack from her arms. Bobbi takes it, placing the article on a chair in the corner.

"I didn't blame you, you know," Lance whispers as they fold Lily's new clothes and put them into drawers. "For not telling me when you found out you were pregnant. I mean, who would want a bastard like me to be the father of their child? I didn't blame you."

"You didn't?"

"No. I understood that. And when I did find out, I wanted to be a better man. For you, for her. And then you told me she died," his voice cracks on the last word. "And it all unraveled. I spent the next six years thinking 'what if'. What if _I_ was a better man? What if _I_ hadn't let them take her away? What if _I_ had gotten there a little earlier? And you know what? It wasn't _my_ fault at all. I know that now. But those last six years of my life? Of her life? Gone. And if it's anyone's fault, it's _yours_."

He throws the last t-shirt into a drawer and leaves.

Bobbi gives him a minute, taking the time to adjust Lily's sheets, close the drawers, and turn out the lights.

Before she leaves, Bobbi hovers, for a moment, over her daughter's forehead. She wants to—she doesn't actually know—but leaving so suddenly, without some signal, feels wrong. Then again, so does everything else.

"Who are we kidding?" she asked the darkness. Nothing answered. Nothing could.

In the end, she patted the end of the bed three times, careful not to hit Lily's leg by accient, and left awkwardly to join the grown-ups.

 

Skye and Simmons are eating microwave lasagna when they enter the living room. Skye points to another one of the plastic containers with her fork. "It's not too bad."

Hunter's sitting, cross-legged, on the floor next to the couch. Silent. It's a dark corner. Bobbi can't read his face while Skye gives them the rundown of the cabin, and she doesn't think she wants to.

"There's an electric fence around the perimeter. Only Coulson, May and me know where the gate is. To exit, you need the gate code. The computer's set up with Wi-Fi and I can connect your phones to the router whenever. Other than that, Coulson got some of that book series Lily had in her bag and he authorized me to download some school programs onto the computer. He also wants her to start training with me to control her strength and speed when Jemma clears her, medically."

"Which should be soon. She's doing remarkably well," Simmons adds.

Bobbi nods once, noticing how her stance has changed from tired to alert. How very _agent_ of her. She can't decide if that's a bad thing, but she doesn't really have time to, right now. "Thank you, both of you. For everything." She looks around, at the cabin. It's nice, the type of place she would have wanted Lily to grow up in, only with more neighbors. Kids for her to play with. That was not an option, not yet.

Not now.

The two women nod, getting up to leave the cabin. "We're going to sleep in the van," Skye explains. "Give you guys some space."

"If anything happens during the night, just yell and we'll be here in a second," Simmons promises.

The parents nod. Hunter closes the door behind them, letting out a long breath. "I'll sleep on the couch," he says, laying down, fully-clothed, and closing his eyes. "Goodnight." The snark has an edge so sharp Bobbi's surprised there isn't a knife in her heart. It certainly hurts enough.

"Night," Bobbi mutters back.

 

Lily wakes up the next morning when sunlight starts streaming through the window. She's almost scared, at first. Sun isn't something she's used to, and she's not sure if she likes it yet. But it's there, so she's going to have to deal with it.

Sighing, she looks around at the strange room and its corners. It's the kind of place she reads about in her books, with a bed, desk, dresser and everything. There's even a painting on the wall, with no apparent function other than to make the place look nicer.

It's such a stark contrast from her room at the Centipede base. Even back when there were scientists and food and experiments, the room where she spent most of her time was only equipped with a mattress on the floor, tiny chest of drawers and a stack of whatever books they brought for her to amuse herself with. Everything was clean, but it was sparse and white. Devoid of all color.

Sometimes, one of the newer lab assistants would let her watch TV for a while, but always stopped after they were done feeling bad about their unwilling human test subject. Anyway, the harsh reds and blues and yellows hurt her eyes.

Lily snaps herself out of this train of thought. _No thoughts, no thoughts, not thoughts._ She repeats it to herself like a warning. She can't think about there. Anyway, she's gone now. With her parents.

(The people who say they're her parents, anyway).

_Nope._

Lily gets up, imagining the memories are stuck to the pillow, unable to follow her into the daytime. She looks around again, getting her bearings.

By the window is a bookcase. One shelf is filled with more of the Baby Sitter's Club books. Some she hasn't even read yet. The others are various series. All peak her interest right off the bat. It takes all of her willpower not to go down the rabbit hole with some of those.

She moves to the dresser next. There are new clothes in the drawers. Nice ones, soft. Whoever picked them had been careful to only chose long sleeves, which she has grateful for.

People tend to stare at her Centipede.

She dresses in a pair of black leggings and a dark blue t-shirt. Then, on top of that Lily throws on her old black hoodie. It goes down almost to her knees, but she does not care. It's soft and doesn't irritate the skin on her arm.

Socks are next, she reminds herself. One stripped orange and one with Monday written on the bottom. Then her old black "Converse" shoes with yellow laces. _Batman_ , one of the lab techs had called them. _Or, Batgirl_.

To this day, she has no idea what they meant.

The colors are mostly dark, but it's comforting to her. No brightness. There was always color at the base, with scientists' bright white lab coats and scrubs in every color known to man. It was never quite as bad as TV, but her eyes tended to get mixed up after a while.

There's a hairbrush on the dresser; she pulls it through her thick light brown hair quickly. It stings a bit, but, luckily for her, her hair has never been that hard to handle.

 _What next?_ her mind asks. Anything to keep it occupied. Lily looks around for something else she had to do. Her eyes fall onto the black backpack, which is sitting on a random chair in the corner.

Unpacking.

Lily moves over to the bed with her bag, unzipping it methodically. There is her box. She opens the latch next, flipping it open and dumping the contents onto the bed.

Her thimble, the pen she had stolen from one of the scientists, a book she had hidden from them, the elephant, the world ball and her coin. She sets them out on the desk carefully, copying the whole thing to memory before carefully picking everything back up and placing it back into her box. Then into the bag.

Lily puts one of her blankets—the scratchy wool one—on the chair, underneath her bag. The soft one she lays out on the end of the bed. It's a weird shade of brown, hand-knitted. At this point, she doesn't even know where it came from.

Then she goes over to the bookcase, scanning the titles. The first one she has not read gets tucked under her arm. It gives her courage, in a weird way. To leave the safety of this wonderland and head out into the sea of unknown elements.

She walks over to the door, feeling it's light brown wooden frame and the cool air that flowed through the cracks. The hair on her knuckles stood up. She shivered slightly, partly from nervousness and partly because she was actually cold.

The door itself was the same light wood as the walls of this room, panels and all. Only, this was quite obviously the door, because there were yellowish metal hinges connecting it to the wall and its wood is shaped differently, with rectangles taken out (a design? possibly).

Fingers tip-toeing over the expanse, she makes note to breathe. Once, twice, three times.

Then, slowly, Lily opens the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed! I realize I haven't said this yet, but if you notice any mistakes don't hesitate to tell me!


	6. You're A Weapon, Child (So Be More Than What They Make Of You)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning in this chapter for language and violence

Lily looks around.

Skye is sitting at the desk, eating a bowl of something and looking at the computer. Bobbi is sitting at the table, sipping on a cup of coffee and watching as Hunter looks through the TV channels. Simmons is across from her, also drinking something from a mug. Lily wants to assume its tea but the notion is too stereotypical to actually be true.

They all turn to Lily as she closes the door behind her. She nods awkwardly, waves a little and thinks about what she needs to do next. Something comes to mind, but it requires talking. Lily stands there for a moment, taking a breath and summoning up all her courage.

And nothing comes out.

There are too many memories. And, even if the rule against speaking does not apply here, it brings back the panic. The walls seem too close. She needs to get out.

Lily adverts her eyes and hurries out the cabin’s door.

There are trees and the purple van and not a lot else. Water, somewhere a little out of view. She starts off there, calming her mind and trying to get some air.

Outside feels… better. Like she can breathe. Lily sits down on the grass overlooking the lake. It’s beautiful, probably the first truly beautify thing she has ever seen. It’s almost impossible to believe that a year ago, she was locked in a windowless room, a human lab rat.

“No thoughts,” Lily whispers almost silently, feeling the memory begin to pull her under.

 

The first time she woke up after the surgery, everything was too bright. Too loud. There were the doctors, standing over her with their cold, disconnected eyes and hard chipboards. Everything was numbers and lines.

They made her get up, get dressed.

Then came the battery of tests. Running on a treadmill. Lifting things. Some were as easy as taking her temperature. Others were withstanding the torture of their lightning rods. By the end of the day, her skin was on fire and the sounds of screams were radiating through her ribcage.

And they repeated it the next day.

And the next.

And the next, until her body was a mass of bruises and cuts and generally looked like shit.

…And then it didn’t anymore. Whatever they put in Lily made her heal faster, withstand more, become stronger.

Lot of good that would do her in this box, where the only danger she faced was carefully calculated. Precise. Clean.

“Nothing you can’t take,” Dr. Whitehall liked to say.

 

Lily shakes her head, dispelling the memories and pushing everything else away. She opens the book, looking at the impossibly green grass and clear waters in front of her.

Everything is so… perfect. Too much so.

If that memory reminded her of anything, it was that things could go great for a while before descending into fresh hell.

Lily can’t help but wonder when it was all going to go to shit.

Sighing, she starts to read intently.

A couple of chapters later, Simmons comes outside, tapping her on the shoulder. Instinctively, Lily flinches away. Her brain tells her how insufficient this is, how she needs to shape up, but all Lily can think is how weird this feels.

“You need to eat something,” Simmons informs her, holding out a sandwich. Lily nods, taking it and going back to her book. Eventually, the scientist leaves her in peace again.

At around noon, Lily gets up of her own accord. She’s finished the book.

Going inside is somehow easier. The cabin down not seem as overwhelming as it had before, which is something.

While she sits in the corner, of her bedroom, the adults have a hushed conversation in the kitchen. Lily uses her enhanced hearing to pick up on a few words, but tunes it out after realizing they were debating whether or not they should move the plane. _Boring._

Simmons and Skye leave again after that, saying they have to go check in with HQ or something. Lily thinks they want to go make out in the van, but she keeps her mouth shut.

Bobbi and Hunter do not notice or care, because they are whisper-fighting over who should get ‘quality time’ with her first. Lily shuts them up by getting out a pack of cards and dealing for Go Fish. A male lab tech had taught the game to her when she was five.

They try to ask her questions during the session, but Lily just shakes her head. The only phrases permissible were ‘Do you a have a (card number/letter)?’ and ‘Go fish’.

Hunter wins, but Lily is not surprised. He knows how to count cards.

She wonders, through her relative haze, if she can get him to teach her poker.

 

"Time for bed." Bobbi never realized she has a 'mother' voice until now. She kind of likes it.

The yawning, scrappy blonde girl sitting next to her nods and gets up. Trailing like a zombie, she allows Bobbi to follow her into her room and help her get ready. Teeth, face, pajamas. A routine everyone with a parent knows, one Lily isn't at all familiar with.

Then Bobbi is watching her crawl into bed and she's turning out the lights and leaving without a word.

She really can't think of anything to say, but that might not be a bad thing.

 

Lily starts to worry about the future that night. About her future with her parents, actually. They were nice enough people, but how long would it take for them to realize that she was not the daughter that they had lost seven years ago?

Centipede had changed her. Taken the puzzle piece of her existence apart and put her back together with that… that _thing_ attached. They had even kicked a few pieces under the table.

She would never get those back. She would never be the same.

But how would they even know what she was supposed to be? Lily certainly didn’t. The alterations had been made before she even had a chance to develop a small part of herself.

Lily would never know who she would have been. If she had grown up in SHIELD… would she be different? Almost definitely, but what could she do about it? There was no going back. No changing who she was now. No do-overs.

And, there she was, laying in her too-soft bed and wondering at what point her parents would decide to send her back. She was not worthy of their love. Not after what she had done. What she was forced to do.

_You had a choice. You could have said no. You could have let them kill you._

When sleep finally takes her in its clutches, it seems fitting that she should return to the first life she took.

 

She was five when they decided Lily was healthy enough to be trained. Or, rather, broken. As they walked her down the hallway with her wrists and ankles bound, she knew this had always been coming. But, maybe, if her surgery had failed, things would be different. Instead of wondering if she was strong enough to break through the restraints, she would be dead. And the world would be all the better for it.

Of course, her five-year-old mind had not thought that at the time. No, Lily had still been in the phase of blaming everyone other than the obvious culprit: herself.

That day changed it all.

 _They’re planning something_. Lily glanced around, not moving her head. Looking through the mess of hair that had fallen into her eyes was difficult, but she managed.

The guard walking her was on-edge; the two lab techs were nervous. One was clicking a pen repeatedly, but the (armed) man ordered him to stop right away, hand going to his gun.

They stopped outside one of many doors Lily had never been through. The guard opened the door, pushing her inside with a hard blow to the back. She stumbled for a few steps before regaining her footing in the large room.

Behind a wall of glass, she could see a panel of scientists in bright white lab coats looking on. Lily looked forward, towards the fighter’s ring and at an older kid who was staring back at her from it. He’d been beaten and bruised, like her. Yet, as they stood there, the torture marks began to fade on both of them.

And that was when Lily noticed the orange Centipede on his arm.

The boy seemed to know what is going on, even if she didn’t. He raised his fists, ready to strike. Something told her she was his target.

“Get in the ring,” a voice commanded her. Lily looked to the glass wall, where one of the older-looking scientists had begun speaking into the mike. When she didn’t move immediately, two of the guards who were stationed at each corner of the room picked her up and forced her inside the railings.

The boy moved forward regretfully, his eyes shining. One of his fists landed in her stomach, and Lily hissed at him. In retaliation, she kicked him behind the knee. The boy fell to the floor, crying out in pain and shock.

Lily waited for him to stand, but the boy did not get up until one of the guards came over with his lightning stick and prodded him. Sluggishly, he tried to swipe her feet, but Lily was faster. She moved to the other side of the ring.

“What is this?” she asked as the boy gets up.

He just shook his head and punched her repeatedly in the abdomen.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

This infuriated the girl, him talking to her as if she were already dead. She found the instructions somewhere in her brain, and started really fighting him.

It was almost an even match, with each of the children preforming some of the most amazing tactical and gymnastic moves the scientist had ever seen. But Lily had something on her side the boy did not, though neither of them knew it at the time.

Genetics.

“No… I’m sorry,” she muttered in his ear, pinning him to the ground with her legs around his neck.

He hit her repeatedly in the same spot above the knee until one of the scientists said it was okay for them to stop.

Lily got up quickly, flushed and victorious.

The boy stayed down, knowing what is to come.

The guards picked him up. He went limp, eyes open as they dragged him out of the ring. Another one did the same to her, and Lily complied for the sake of the boy. They were pulled off to the side, where the boy immediately handed her a small coin.

“From she before me,” he whispered. The guilt on his face made her chest twist.

“What happened to her?”

“The same as you will do to me.” Carefully, the boy took a small purple animal figure out of his pocket. “An elephant,” he explained. “They told me it was from my parent’s country. I just think they’re a bunch of racist bastards.” He raised his voice on the last few words, unafraid.

Lily stared, wide-eyed, as he handed her this, too. She continued in silence as the boy faced her unflinchingly.

“End him,” the older scientist said, almost lazily.

Lily looked around, confused, until the boy nodded and she realized the order was meant for her.

One of the guards passed her a knife. The blade was sharp. Clean.

It was not her hand holding it. That small, pale, shaking hand clutching the perfectly awful edge was not hers.

It bit into the hand’s palm, sending a line of red down the silvery reflective surface. Beautifully imperfect, a drop of the red liquid dripped onto the floor.

Silence. Complete, utter silence. No movement. No breath. “No,” Lily uttered. “No, no, no, no, no.” She fell to her knees, rocking back and forth and dropping the knife. They hit her with the electric-tipped sticks until she picked it up again.

The boy helped her, forcing her fingers around the safe side. “How old are you?” he asked, looking her up and down.

“Five,” she responded near-silently.

He shook his head slightly, pulling the knife closer to his chest. “Son of a bitch,” the boy muttered. “So, you’re the one they’ve been obsessing over. Didn’t think you’d be so small.”

“Hurry it up!” the scientist ordered.

“Okay… you’ve got to do this now. Otherwise—” he was cut off by the piece that got slammed into his head. The boy fell down, moaning. “Well, that hurts like a mother,” he groaned, standing up again. “I’m twelve, by the way. Good age to kick the barrel, I think.”

He was being brave, holding her hands still and pulling them up, up, up to his neck. The boy let go, tracing the path she must take just under his chin. “It’ll be fast. Best way to go. Just, uh, do me a favor and stick it to these assholes one day.”

Lily nodded and pulled the knife across his neck quickly.

The boy was dead.

The boy was dead and they clapped, like she had done something good. But it was bad. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

There was blood on her hands, both figuratively and metaphorically. In her hair. Under her nails. It was splattered across her arms and drenched her bare feet. Sprays had landed on her legs.

So much red.

They led her off onto an antechamber, spraying her down until the water ran from red to clear blue again. They give her a towel to dry herself and clothes to change into.

“Next fight is in two days,” the guards gossiped. “I’m putting a hundred down on that girl. She’s an animal!”

“They don’t call her the Mantis for nothing,” one replied, laughing.

They became silent when Lily emerged, face a blank mask. She looked to the floor when the guards pushed her forward.

This was the end of her childish existence.

This was the beginning of what was next.


	7. Know The Bounds Of This Cage (And Do Not Be Afraid When Lightning Strikes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They learn something about the cabin, and Lily tries to bridge the divide between her feuding parents.

Bobbi wakes up to screaming. Not to the whimpering of a scared child or the shouts of an angry one, but honest-to-god earsplitting screams. It is a sound she has seldom heard, but nothing holds a match to this level of fear pounding an eardrum.

In a matter of seconds, she is armed with batons and running into her daughter’s room.

“I heard something,” Bobbi says lamely, looking around and realizing the sound has since stopped.

These words are directed at Lance, who is sitting on the edge of Lily’s bed and trying to calm the girl down without waking her.

“Yeah. Nightmare,” he responds in a whisper. “She’s fine.”

Bobbi goes to her other side, replying, “They hurt her, Lance. I don’t think she’ll ever be completely fine,” she murmurs, not looking at him.

Lance’s head snaps up. “Don’t talk like that, Bobbi… she just needs to get ahold of her power and then—”

“I’m not talking about her physically. Her mental and emotional states are what they hurt the most. I have no idea how they did it but… they broke her. And I’m not sure if she’ll get better from that.”

“Lily’s your daughter, too. If she’s anything like you she can do bloody anything,” Lance replies in an odd tone. Part grateful, part hateful, as so many things were with him.

They sit in silence after that, comforting their daughter without her knowing it. It’s odd and very awkward but right and just perfect at the same time.

“I doubt that,” Bobbi eventually whispers.

“What are you trying to say?” Lance snaps, taking it the wrong way.

“Nothing, Hunter,” she responds, trying to defuse the situation and failing miserably.

“No, what were you trying to say? That I don’t know her? Because, if that’s what you were saying, let me remind you the reason.”

“Lance!” They both pause as Lily turns in her sleep, visible tear stains left on the pillow. “I didn’t mean anything,” she adds in a much quieter voice.

He refuses to answer her, only infuriating Bobbi further. They give each other the silent treatment until sneaking out of Lily’s room once she calms down and her brain moves away from whatever nightmare had invaded her unconscious thoughts.

 

Lily feels the tension as soon as she wakes. Something is even more off than it’d been yesterday, and she has no idea how to fix it. She can’t help the feeling that it’s somehow her fault. When she thinks a little, she realizes it probably is.

Her mood is reflected perfectly in the weather. A thunderstorm has planted itself over their cabin and it refuses to budge. All five of them are essentially prisoners inside those four walls, even more so than they had been before.

Simmons knocks on her door softly at around seven. Lily can tell it’s Simmons because Skye walks heavier and her parents don’t usually knock with a two-beat.

“Good morning, Lily. I just wanted to see if you were up yet. We thought it would be nice of have breakfast together today.”

Translation: Your parents are about half an inch away from killing each other and we need you to remind them why they cannot.

Lily nods, chewing her bottom lip, and opens the door.

Stepping outside of her room is definitely easier than it was yesterday, mostly because the thought of staying alone in her room is more frightening. It’s dark outside, the kind of day that makes you feel you’re never safe, wherever you go.

Safety in numbers rings true, even with her.

“Hello,” Lily forces herself to greet them. She’s trying to speak more. To be normal. So far, _not_ so good. Her nervousness is only brought out more by the fact that her parents want to spent time with her, but not with each other. It’s more than a little awkward. Skye and Jemma attempt to bridge the divide, but only manage to make the situation even worse.

“Well, it’s just a horrid day outside, isn’t it?” Jemma says in a painful attempt to be cheerful. Her cardigan is damp from the rain, droplets clinging to the fibers. She most likely attempted to use it to shield herself from the downpour.

Skye sneezes. She was definitely the worst off of the two, wet bangs stuck to her forehead and the longer strands hanging in soaked clumps around her head. Lily suspected she was the real reason why Simmons was relatively dry. “You can say that again.”

Lily feels bad for the two. They were obviously at least as uncomfortable as she was, and had no reason to be here other than Lily. Certainly, not for Lance and Bobbi, who were starring daggers at each other across the table.

Jemma looks mildly worried, as if she expected Bobbi to jump up and start hitting Lance over the head with her batons any second. Skye was less so and more vigilant, even while towel-drying her hair with one hand. This might be because the other is holding her ICER at the ready under the table.

Fifteen minutes later, she thanks whatever force in the universe gave them luck, because no one is dead yet.

Lily retreats into her room to pick a book, which she reads by the door, her head wedged between the frame and the dresser. It’s the perfect position, because she can see the living room in the mirror but they cannot see her. It’s comforting, for good reason.

This is human nature.

She sits there alone for a while before Bobbi knocks at her door. “Hey,” she says softly. “Can I read with you?”

Lily nods, pointing to the bookshelf. Bobbi picks one and sits with her back at the doorframe, opening the cover carefully. They both start reading.

And then the lights go out.

 

Lily doesn’t scream. Bobbi half expects her to, the small yet long-legged girl in the corner had every right to yell. It’s a frightening situation. She’s already in the corner, which holds the least light in the first place, and it is now pitch-black. This happened in an instant.

While Bobbi is regarding Lily, Hunter comes in, armed with information provided by Skye. “The storm knocked out one of the power grids, so everything went to the fence and some other things. Skye’s fixing it, should be able to get light in here at least.”

Bobbi nods mutely.

Lily does not respond at all.

Hunter sighs, but no sound comes out.

They are a family of silence—if they are even a family at all.

 

“What are you reading?” Hunter asks Lily, an attempt at familiarity. She shows him the cover. _Harry Potter_. “Have you seen the movies?”

“The first one,” she replies quietly. The dark seems to pure to be infected by crude, loud speech.

Hunter nods. They do not move or speak further. All seem to be waiting for the lights to come back on.

The darkness is too illuminating. It rips the shades from their eyes and forces them to face the fact of what they were now. A group of mostly strangers who were being forced together by the jackass called fate. Strangers who should be a family. Happy, more or less.

Skye comes in, hair still damp from the rain. “Hey, I was wondering... is the Internet more important than the freezer or what?”

Bobbi shakes her head and leaves to help Skye figure it out, waving bye to Lily whilst carefully ignoring Hunter.

She wonders how long she’ll be able to keep that up.

 

In Centipede, darkness was relief. When the scientist turned off the lights and finally allowed her to sleep, she was free from their control. They never forced her to sleep, just turned off the blinding lights at a certain time every night and let her decide what to do next. Usually, she chose to shut her eyes and drift off, because she was tired. Sometimes, however, she would use her enhanced eyesight to read (because, yeah, she could see in the dark) or just stare up at the ceiling and count her trophies.

The shiny coin from the girl she had not killed.

The purple elephant from the boy she had.

Now she also had a small box made out of metal from a dark boy with startlingly pale blue eyes and a tiny metal cup with holes in it from a tanned girl who she had almost lost to.

Lily had killed them both, and would kill more as soon as the scientists said so.

She was the perfect experiment, the perfect weapon.

They had given her an ornament of her own, a rubbery model of an insect. She recalled the guard’s words from after the first fight and guessed it was a mantis, whatever that was.

Every time she left the room, she shoved the objects into her tin box and snapped it shut, holding the container close to her chest. They had not brought her back to the ring for a while now, but she knew as soon as they had tweaked their serum enough on another child Lily would be forced to test her strength against them.

And possibly loose.

That was her newest nightmare. Loosing. Having another slide the perfect, sharp blade across her own neck. Dying in an instant.

But she never thought like that in the dark. No, there, she had the advantage. There, she was safe.

 

Lance sits next to her, careful to leave at least half a foot between them. He knows Lily isn’t a fan of physical contact and he wants to make sure she feels comfortable. Or, at least as comfortable as possible.

“When does Harry die?” Lily asks suddenly, closing the book with a loud thud. “When does Voldemort win?”

Hunter shakes his head. “I never read it.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lily re-opens the book and continues reading.

Hunter tries catching a bit over her shoulder, but finds Lily’s pace is almost double his. Maybe he should try reading more....

 _Boom!_ He watches through the window as a lightning rod hits the ground outside the cabin. Lily jumps a bit. “It’s okay. Not like this place is made of metal or anything.”

Lily gives him an odd look, slamming the book closes again and standing. She carefully approaches the wall, running her small fingers over the wood panels until she feels a crack. Then she starts knocking softly on the panels.

Hunter looks on, mildly worried and unsure where this was leading.

 _Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud!_ “One of these things is not like the other,” Lily hums softly to herself. “One of these things just doesn’t belong.” ‘One of these things must die,’ she sings in her head. The morbid version is true.

Lily slides her nails into the crack of this particular panel, slowly pulling it away from the wall.

“Shit,” Lance says, getting up to investigate the real wall. It _was_ metal, a pattern of shiny hexagons fitted together perfectly. “I mean, crap,” he corrects himself, looking at the impressionable seven-year-old next to him.

“I don’t think it’s unsafe though,” Lily tells him. “It’s not normal metal at all.”

Hunter nods at her, sitting back down and looking shocked.

They were in a cage and didn’t even realize it.

 

Skye feels the cold metal under her fingers. Definitely real then. Oh, Coulson was going to get an earful about this later. A frickin’ metal box. He had stuck them in a literal metal box. Holy fucking shit. The hacker in her wanted to rip him a new one right this second. But the agent knew she had to keep it together.

“Hey, Lily? Why don’t you go do some work on the computer? I set it up with the generator.”

The girl grabs her book and leaves quickly, probably realizing shit was about to go down.

“It’s not going to electrocute us. This obviously isn’t any normal metal.”

“Yeah, we figured that out,” Lance replies scathingly. “What I want to know is why the hell is thing place reinforced with fucking _indestructible alien metal_?” He’s pissed. And rightly so.

“You act like I knew this,” she says, defensively moving backwards a few steps. “Well, I didn’t, okay?” No, because Coulson still thought she was a rookie and May did not bother to correct him.

“Really? You’re May’s right hand gal. Coulson treats you like a daughter. You mean to tell me that neither of those bloody idiots told you this place was a _fucking prison_?”

“No… I mean yeah… I mean—They didn’t tell me, okay? As in, I knew nothing of this shittery.” Skye throws up her hands in exasperation. Words are hard to put together sometimes.

Lance stares at her for a good second, finally sighing and throwing himself down on the bed. “Well shit.”

Skye joins him, turning her gaze to the silver hexagons. “Exactly my point.”

“I need a drink.”

“You’re not the only one... Hey, I think I have some beer in my van.”

 

A couple of hours (and as many beers) later, the unlikely pair have moved to Skye’s van so that they can be intoxicated without pissing off Bobbi or Jemma. Not to mention they don’t want to spoil Lily’s impressionable mind or some shit like that.

Skye takes a swig from her bottle, knowing it will probably come back to haunt her but not really caring. “I mean, they treat me like a child.”

Lance drunkenly tries to sit up and falls back against the thin metal with a laugh. “Well, I kinda get that. You’re like their kid, in a way.”

Skye puts down her bottle. “But I’m not. That’s the thing, I have parents out there. Biological ones. Coulson and May aren’t my mother and father, however much we may wish a little differently.”

“Do you think that actually matters? Look at me and Bobbi and Lily. We’re her bio parents, sure. Has that made an inch of difference? Fuck no.”

“Fuck no,” Skye echoes. God, she was going to have such a hangover in the morning. “But you guys have a chance. Look at me and Coulson. I met him just over a year ago and he already thinks he’s my dad. He _feels_ like my dad.” She pauses to take another swig. Liquid courage. How accurate. “You actually are Lily’s parents. And she’s young. A couple of years and it’ll all be good.”

Lance thinks about if for a second. “Yeah, sure. But were you experimented on?”

“In a way… Couples brought me home to see what it was like having a kid. Those were the better homes, because I knew even if they had no interest in _me_ they at least wanted a kid. They wanted to _take care_ of a kid. You wouldn’t believe how many fuckers do it for ‘the money’.” She chuckles bitterly at the memory. “It’s only, like, a couple hundred a month. They realize it’s not worth it and send you back. Sometimes, if they really need it, they’ll keep you for a bit. That’s the worst kind.”

“Why?”

“They’ll kick you around. It’s not that bad once you know how to take it. But when you’re a little kid… it’s damn hard. You’re just wondering what you did, ya know? How you fucked it up yet again.” It’s a series of bad memories from a time she does not talk about. Damn beer. “Anyway, I got pretty messed up. But look at me now… agent and shit. Lily’s gonna be fine.”

Lance looks at her sideways. “You think so?”

Skye shrugs. “What the hell do I know? I’m a frickin’ hacker playing ass-kicking agent for an organization that technically isn’t supposed to exist anymore.”

“And I used to be a mercenary. Crap. How the hell I’m I supposed to be a dad?”

“Don’t look at me! Go call Coulson or Mack or something,” Skye suggests. “Actually, don’t. ‘Cause we’re both pretty drunk right now. Not the best impression to make.”

“Right. God, we’re a fucking mess.”

Skye sighs. “You called it. But you know what? That’s probably the best way to confront DC. Call ‘im up and just tell him what we found.”

“Yeah. Yeah!” Lance agrees, getting out his phone and unceremoniously spilling beer on it. “Shit!”

Skye giggles. Really, fucking _giggles_. Lord, she disgusts even herself. “You’re going to need a new phone. Don’t worry, I have mine.”

 

The director of SHIELD doesn’t expect to get a phone call at midnight from two of his royally wasted agents. This is a ‘what the fuck happened?’ situation at best. Sure, there isn’t exactly a rule against getting drunkenness (though there was definitely going to be in the morning) but agents have always seemed to guess that drinking yourself drunk is frowned upon.

“Skye?” Coulson asks sleepily. He’d not exactly been sleeping when Skye called him, but he had to at least give off that impression. Not like he could say ‘Hey, I was just carving alien symbols into the wall. Have you been doing that lately?’ However much he wanted to….

“Coulson. DC!” Skye talks too loudly, her words slur. She is very obviously drunk, which throws Coulson for a loop. Skye sobers up a bit for her next sentence. “We’re very mad at you, sir. You didn’t tell us this place was a metal box…. I don’t like boxes, Coulson… you can’t get out. Like cellars. One of the families used to lock me in a cellar….”

Coulson flinches. Skye never talks about her time in foster care. Shit. “I… I’m sorry to hear that, Skye. I should have told you.” She won’t remember this in the morning. He hopes. “Look, why don’t you sleep it off. We can talk more in the morning. I was going to come see how Lily was anyway.” No, no he was not, but Skye was in a fragile state and he needed to see her. Getting drunk was out of character, especially after May’s training.

“Ok, DC. See you in the morning.”

She hung up, and Coulson went back to the wall.


	8. Our Children Are Burning (Both Families Are Intertwined)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson comes clean.

Hunter wakes up the next morning with a pounding headache. He sits up, groaning, before laying back down quickly. _God, how much did I drink last night?_

“Up, are we?” Simmons asks dryly, passing him a mug. Tea, he notices, not coffee. She’s a good brit, thank god.

“What’s with the tone?” he winces, sitting up again.

Simmons glares at him. “You got my girlfriend drunk!”

“I rather think it was the other way ‘round, missy. And stop screaming. Why is it so damn bright in here?”

“Because you’re hung over,” Skye murmurs, turning over painfully. “And will everyone shut the hell up? Please?”

“Drink. It’ll take the edge off. Something I came up with at the Academy,” Simmons explains, shoving a mug into Skye’s hands. She turns to Hunter and starts lecturing. “Bobbi is going to be even angrier if you walk in the cabin hung over. Lily’s been asking about you.”

“Crap. I have a daughter, don’t I?” Lance asks, rubbing his temples.

“Yes. A very young, impressionable daughter who has been asking for you since she woke up this morning. She’s worried.”

Hunter sips his tea, standing unevenly. “Then I need to talk to her—”

“After you drink the goddamn tea.”

Skye giggles, still hungover. Simmons didn’t curse much, and whenever she did her voice would turn into a whisper, as if she was scared of getting caught. It was really funny. “Can I get coffee? I’m American. I like coffee.”

“No, sorry. It doesn’t work in coffee, only tea.”

“Course you would invent the hangover cure that doesn’t work in coffee,” Skye grumbles. But she drinks what’s left of the tea, letting Simmons’ combination of chemicals zap the alcohol out of her system. “Damn, that works fast,” she gags, passing Jemma the mug. “And tastes like stale—”

“I’m glad it worked,” Coulson interrupts, coming out of the light.

Skye and Hunter turn to each other, then to Simmons. “Did I forget to mention you drunk-dialed the Director?”

 

Lily’s used to change, in a way. Her life is in a constantly state of flux, especially these last few years. She’d learned she could adapt. She would adapt. She always had, anyway.

Adapting to the spontaneous arrival of her parents’ boss was not very hard. Coulson was not there for them, but for Skye. Well, maybe a little bit for them, given that they been cued to his little deception with the cabin.

Lily’s angry. She doesn’t want to admit it, because when she actually _felt_ … bad things happened. People got hurt at a higher frequency than normal. Anger’s the worst, because it makes it harder to control her strength.

Looking up at the Director, Lily rips three pages out of a book just by turning the page. Coulson notices, throwing concerned glances at the grownups.

“Lily, why don’t you go to your room? We’ll come and get you when we’re done talking.” Bobbi puts on that fake voice, the one you use when you think kids are the dumbest people on the planet (truth is, they’re not even close).

The girl carefully places the pages back into place, refusing to look at the group anymore.

Hunter closes her bedroom door, forcing a smile. It goes nowhere near his eyes. “We’re just going to talk.”

Lily nods, closing her eyes briefly as the air rushes by and hits her in the face.

 

The door slammed closed. It was meant to be final, bouncing off walls and not quite disappearing in the corners. Lily sighed, sitting down cross-legged on her cot. The door was camouflaged, but she could usually tell where it was by the position of the cot or her box. Sometimes, they moved the bed to see what she would do, but it never really mattered. The door would always open and the experiments would always continue.

Until the day they didn’t.

There were gunshots. That, she remembered. And the sounds of fighting. People running and fighting and killing each other. Some were taken hostage, she could hear the barking of orders and the loud click of something—handcuffs?—that she recognized from TV.

She waited days for them. Maybe even weeks. Still, no one came.

At first there had been surprise. Then elation, which soon gave way to fear. Crushing, burning, lingering fear.

Lily understood that she was completely dependent on the scientists. For everything. They gave her food, shelter. They kept the thing on her arm in check. Without them… well, she was screwed.

So, for a while, Lily sat and waited to die.

 

She could do the same now, but it probably wouldn’t work. These people form actual relationships based on love and friendship. Things that didn’t end when someone leaves. They would come and get her, eventually.

In the meantime, she could eavesdrop on their conversation.

Lily lays down on her stomach, putting her body parallel to the gap under the door. Closing one eye, she looks at the grown-ups’ shoes, placing them in her mind. Coulson is standing next to the kitchen, facing the chairs. It looks like Skye is in the one closest to him, with Simmons sitting next to her. They might be holding hands, but Lily really can’t tell from her vantage point. Bobbi and Hunter are standing near the chairs, a noticeable distance between them. They think she doesn’t notice they’re not talking, but it was so obvious she can’t help but see it.

Closing her eyes briefly, Lily, picked up the sounds of their voices, making everything else static in the background.

“—felt the need to protect her from Hydra,” Coulson finishes what Lily takes to be a very uninteresting monologue.

“Yeah, because this place wasn’t safe enough. We want out,” Lance counters him.

There is silence, and Lily assumes it is Coulson looking around to see if the others felt the same.

“We didn’t sign up for a prison, sir,” Simmons says apologetically.

Coulson sighs heavily. “No, you didn’t. Does Lily know about the reinforcements?”

“She was the one that showed them to us. One of the boards in her room was loose,” Skye says.

“Okay, that’s—” The rest is drowned out by footsteps. Before Lily can realize what’s happening, the door to her room is open and the five agents are looking down at her with varying degrees of amusement.

“Hi, Mr. Coulson.”

Lily wants to ask what gave her away. Maybe Coulson noticed her shadow under the door frame. Or maybe her breathing was too loud. The words are in her brain, but she does not quite know how to ask. Strike that, Lily knows _how_ to ask, she’s just deathly afraid of the outcome.

Punishment is a concept she’d grasped early on. If you did something the people in charge didn’t like, there’d be consequences. Questions were all but banned, so she’d learnt not to ask them.

She’d begun to break that habit with Bobbi and Lance, even Simmons and Skye, but Coulson’s the big bad. The boss. The head of the agency that now controlled her life.

Lily decides to stay silent. For now, at least. Just as a safety measure.

Coulson’s hand moves and Lily freezes, anticipating a blow. It halts midair before retracting.

 _So, maybe he isn’t as bad as he could be_ , Lily thinks as she rolls over, sits up and looks at the collection of adults that had assembled while she was in her mindplace.

Skye is the first to speak. “What did you hear?”

Direct answers are good. But not too lengthy. “From ‘felt the need to protect her from Hydra’.”

Simmons lets out a relieved breath. _Interesting._ So, they’d been talking about her beforehand. Lily wonders what they’d said. If only she’d started listening earlier.

It makes her mouth want to laugh a bit. If Lily is still an experiment, she shouldn’t be thinking like this. She probably shouldn’t be anyway, but it’s too much fun.

Coulson fixes on her. It’s a calculated stare, the first one she has received in a while. Skye’s a good agent, but a little green, still attached to her hacker roots, while Bobbi’s too fixated on trying to crack Lily’s defenses to delve into the girl’s darker side. The side that’s in charge now.

“It was your eye. The blinking.”

Lily nods, silently chastising herself for such a slip-up.

“Other than that, she’s a natural,” Coulson points out, much to the chagrin of Lance and Bobbi.

“We went over this,” the father points out, fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. “And the answer is no.”

Coulson nods sheepishly. “I was just pointing out a fact.”

“She’s seven.”

“She wouldn’t have to start now. It’s just something to keep in mind, for when everything stabilizes a bit.”

They’re careful not to say it out loud, but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out. Coulson wants her to be an agent. Not now, but he thinks one day Lily will get more control and be able to actually do something _good_ , for the agency. For the world.

_Yeah, good luck with that._

Lily knows without a doubt she’s a Hulk in this situation, only without Bruce Banner to keep the monster in check. The only exception is in those horrible moments sanity that are often accompanied by the purest form of sadness, she feels her powers drain a little, as if the sheer force of her emotional instability is too much for her body to handle along with the crazy, messed-up powers. It’s then that she feels more like a Hawkeye, seemingly a spec next to super soldiers and gods (hey, even in her confinement, they got news. Occasionally. Plus, the honest-to-god frozen super soldier had been a big thing around the lab). Either way, Lily knows she would never be the agent Coulson wants.

While Lily is thinking, the adults carry on with their insistent bickering. Lily supposes she could put a stop to it by telling them she doesn’t _want_ to be an agent—these are the kind of people who believe in free choice, after all—but what would Coulson do? Without his help, Lily doubts they’d survive very long before Hydra arrives.

It dawns on her that other seven-year-olds live lives nothing like hers. Lily never really had the time to think about it before, choosing to focus on the difficulties of staying alive. But now, in the cabin, she is able to draw a sharp contrast between her life and those she reads about. Lily seems… more grown-up, in some ways. She guesses that’s what happens when you spend the first seven years of your life as a science experiment/murderer (however frank, it’s the truth).

And then there are the other things, the areas where she feels years behind. Love itself is a concept Lily still doesn’t think she _gets_. The word itself is overused, in her opinion, but whatever. It isn’t like it matters, anyway.

Everyone dies. That’s the one think Lily is certain of. Sure, some might find a way to doge or slow the end, but it will always come. And when it does, most have done nothing to leave any kind of impression on the world.

But that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

 

The fighting continues for a long, long time. Lily, her Centipede project self, is still only seven, and falls asleep on the couch sometime around eleven. Okay, maybe it was ten, but she has an energy-sucking Centipede on her arm. She gets a break.

Call it parents’ intuition or agents’ training, but Bobbi and Hunter notice at almost the same second. “Can we pause this, sir?” the former asks pointedly.

Coulson glances at the girl on the couch, remembering for the first time in a while that she actually was a girl. A traumatized, hurt little girl who had barely recovered from organ failure. _Crap._ He’d brought it up too quickly. “We won’t have to.” Then he does something Nick Fury would never do. Apologizes. “I’m… sorry. I have to go but I’ll send May to help you out in a couple days. I assume you want to stay in the US?” Coulson looks from Hunter to Bobbi.

“Yes. Thank you, sir,” Hunter says, picking up his daughter and carrying her to her room before Coulson can rethink this decision. Bobbi follows close behind.

Lily wakes up somewhere between the door and her bed. “Wha’s ‘appenin’?” she groans softly, nuzzling her head into Lance’s shoulder adorably.

“Just moving you to your bed, hon. You fell asleep on the couch,” Bobbi answers, pulling the sheets down.

Lance drops her onto the mattress carefully.

Sleepily, Lily nods. “Good. I’m sick of all the whisper-fighting.”

Lance smirks at Bobbi sheepishly as she pulls the sheets back up. “I guess we didn’t fool you.”

“No.”

“It’s done now, baby,” Bobbi promises.

“Uh-huh. ‘M not agent material. I sleep now,” the exhausted Lily mutters. “‘M tired.”

Bobbi and Lance do not waste breath asking how Lily knew what they were fighting with Coulson over. Lily is their daughter, and that was answer enough.

“Goodnight.”

“Uh-huh.” And then Lily is asleep.

Bobbi smiles at Lance absentmindedly. He automatically replicates the action.

Their dynamic as a family was not great. It probably did not even qualify as good. But they were getting there.

 

They spend that night discussing their values, their morals, the way they wanted to raise a kid. Sure, Lily’s… special circumstances had to be taken into account, but it was the most honest, normal conversation either had partaken in for a long while.

“Okay, so, how are we going to pay for college?” Bobbi asks, pouring herself a cup of coffee. It was around one in the morning, but neither wanted to close out the night just yet.

“I’ve got an uncle at Oxford,” Lance admits sheepishly. “Well, more like an estranged son of a bitch dad….”

“Hunter!” Bobbi punches him none to softly on the arm. “Why did this never come up when we were married?”

“We didn’t really talk back then, did we?”

“I guess not. Anyway, does he get a discount?”

“Not really on grandchildren, but he offered to pay for my Mum. The one catch, it could only be used for tuition. I didn’t go to university, so that money’s still sitting in a bank account.”

“Okay…” Bobbi crosses this off of her mental list of worries. “What about religion?”

Lance snorts. “Do you really think Hydra gave her a bible?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least introduce her to the possibility. And, anyway, my mother will kill me if I don’t take her to church at least once.” Bobbi laughs, sipping her coffee to stifle a yawn.

“Enough said. What about school?”

“Well, Skye’s got her set up online—at least for the time being. But we should definitely look into public schools once she acclimatizes. It’ll be good for her.”

“Definitely. Do you think… maybe she should see someone?”

“What, like a therapist?”

Hunter shrugs. “Could be a good idea. Talk about what she went through.”

“Right. What about… doctor’s visits?”

“I think Simmons has that covered. Plus, I’m not exactly sure how we’d explain the orange insect on her arm. Actually, we probably shouldn’t move somewhere warm.”

“Yeah, long sleeves are a must.”

Hunter looks up from his coffee, reading Bobbi’s expression. She still felt bad, which Lance felt partially responsible for. Well, if anyone knew how to lighten the mood, it was Lance Hunter, A.K.A. Agent Asshole. “I don’t know about you, but I sure wish _I_ had such a great excuse for having my doctor write notes to get me out of gym.”

Bobbi smiles sadly, seeing right through him. “Yeah, well, she won’t be getting off that easily. She’ll need some training to control the superpowers.”

“Are superpowers even the right word?” Lance asks, deadpan. “We’ve seen some wacky shit, is it bad that this doesn’t seem so crazy when you really think about it?”

Bobbi laughs. Lance had the most serious look on his face Bobbi had ever seen. Which was saying something considering it was Hunter’s face. “Probably. But I’m more concerned about the fact that you just used the words ‘wacky’ and ‘shit’ in the same sentence. The last time I heard those two words together we had just finished making Lily.”

“And I’ve been holding onto ‘em since,” Lance jokes.

Bobbi pauses before leaning in and whispering, “I hope so.”

And Lance knows he is screwed.


	9. We Are Growing Together (Please, Don't Let Them Cut Us Apart)

Another account of adult insanity: thinking children don’t know when they’ve been sleeping together. Apparently, Lily’s parents are part of this oh-so-oblivious group.

Lily wakes up at around seven. She actually got a good night’s sleep, which is kind of weird, but she’s not going to complain. There is, by some miracle, a nice, peaceful dream tugging at her consciousness. While she can’t quite remember the details, it’s oddly soothing.

She continues in this tranquil state while washing and getting dressed. Lance and Bobbi do not make an appearance at breakfast, and that is her first clue. Sure, none of them staying at the cabin were exactly ‘family meal’ people, but both Hunter and Bobbi gone? The cabin wasn’t that big, so they had to be in the main bedroom. Together. Even Simmons and Skye were smirking at each other and mouthing things when they thought Lily was turned the other way.

When Hunter finally emerges, it’s around ten in the morning. His hair is standing up in about a dozen different angles and he is wearing the same t-shirt from yesterday. Apart from being extremely obvious, he is _happy_. “Morning, you lot!”

“Almost the afternoon,” Simmons says disapprovingly. But she is smiling so Lily knows not to take it that seriously.

“It’s like battle of the accents in here,” Skye whispers, making Lily giggle. “Now all we need is Fitz and we’d have the whole British alliance together.”

Simmons attempts to give them stern looks, but ends up blushing instead when Skye saunters over and whispers something to the scientist.

“Where’s Bobbi?” Skye asks, pulling away slightly and smirking.

“Shower,” Hunter replies automatically, peering in the coffee pot. “Got any tea?”

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Simmons says with a slight roll of her eyes, going over to the stove to fix it.

Lily turns towards Skye discretely. “I see what you mean.”

“Oi! You’re British too, you know,” Lance points out, ruffling her hair. Lily laughs and straightens the displaced locks without much difficulty.

“Then… God save the Queen?” Lily innocently looks to her father for approval.

“We’re going to need to re-educate this one,” Lance says to Simmons jokingly. “Before her mother’s Wisconsin-ness gets to her.”

Bobbi comes out of their room right on cue. Her hair is wet from the shower, but other than that Morse seems no different from normal. “Hey! I’m from San Diego!” she corrects Lance, towel-drying her hair.

“Where’s that?” Lily asks before her training kicks in.

“California.”

Lily nods solemnly. She knows California was where a lot of famous people lived and there were a lot of beaches there but that was about it. Lily has another question, actually, and now that she has already broken that rule might as well do it again.

“So… did you guys have sex last night?” Lily asks nonchalantly, leaning her elbows on the counter and taking a bite of toast.

Then a few things happen. Hunter chokes on his own saliva, starting a very loud coughing fit. Skye starts howling with laughter after a split-second pause. Dr. Simmons is startled by the noise and jumps, burning her hand on the kettle. Then she shouts in surprise and Bobbi rushes over to look at the burn.

Lily looks at the effect of her actions with wide eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to ask that, was I?” she asks Skye. The agent, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, shakes her head, unable to speak. “Shit.”

“Language!” Bobbi reprimands automatically. She is rubbing some type of cream into Jemma’s burn and wonders where an almost-eight-year old learned _that_. And what sex was.

Apparently, Hydra doesn’t hold any punches on some subjects.

“I meant crap,” Lily corrects herself. Bobbi glances at her sternly. “I meant gosh, darn it!”

Bobbi chuckles and shakes her head, going back to the burn. She bandages it expertly, nodding at Simmons to remove the gasping Skye so her, Lily and Hunter could talk. “Now, about your question—”

“LALALALALALALA!” Hunter sings, stuffing his fingers in his ears and forcing his eyes shut. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

“Oh, grow up, Hunter,” Bobbi says, punching his arm. “Do you want her to think she can’t come to you about these kind of things?”

“YES!” Hunter replies, getting up and running for the door with his fingers still in his ears.

Bobbi shakes her head at him. “The answer—”

“NEVERMIND!” Lily screams, following him. She wasn’t exactly sure why, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Her dad did it, anyway.

Bobbi sighs, smiling a bit. “Like father, like daughter.”

 

Agent May comes by later that day, and the cabin is sent into a frenzy of packing. “Where are we going, Bobbi?” Lily asks, putting all her special things into her backpack. Bobbi is putting Lily’s still-newish clothes into a suitcase.

“Washington.”

“Isn’t that where the president lives?” Lily asks, confused.

“Well, the president lives in Washington D.C., which is actually on the other side of the country. The state Washington is different.”

Lily nods. “Are there a lot of people there?” Lily asks, pulling on her sleeve. There’s a slight bulge where the Centipede is, but it’s barely noticeable.

“Well, yes. But not where we’re going to live.”

Lily bites her lip. “Can I live in a city one day? One with lots of people and tall buildings?”

“Yes,” Bobbi replies, knowing she probably shouldn’t. “If you want to and work really hard for it.”

“Are there a lot of cities in Washington?”

“A couple, yeah. One of the big important ones is Seattle.”

“Does it rain a lot in Washington?” Lily asks hopefully.

“Yeah, actually.”

“That’s nice. I like the rain. When felt it for the first time... it was awesome.” Lily smiles, thinking about the feeling of the water hitting her head. “Do you have parents?”

Bobbi shrugs a shoulder. “Everyone has parents.”

“But are they alive?”

“Oh, yeah. Mom is a banker and my Dad is a teacher. They live in Florida, now. Less dry, more humid. Good for Dad’s lungs. And his plants.” Bobbi grins. “Daddy loves his garden; he works out there every weekend.”

Lily frowns. “Do they know about me?”

Bobbi looks up oddly, thinking. “Well, I guess not.” She shrugs at Lily. “I’ll just have to call them later, won’t I?”

“You don’t have to. It might be easier,” Lily tells her, looking down and kicking her foot.

“Hey,” Bobbi says softly, sitting down next to her. “You’re my kid, which makes you their granddaughter. And family is anything but easy.”

“So… we’re a family?”

“Yeah. Definitely… eccentric. But definitely a family.”

Lily turns and hugs Bobbi quickly, careful not to put too much strength behind it. She breaks off after half a second, but Bobbi does not notice. She is too busy smiling.

 

“How’s the kid?” May asks Skye and Simmons. They were just outside the cabin, under the guise of loading a couple boxes into the van.

“Good,” Simmons says, looking down at the bandage on her palm.

“Great.” Skye starts laughing a bit, remembering the conversation from this morning.

May locks in on Simmons’s hand. “She do that?”

“No, it was an accident. Lily, uh, asked a question and I was startled.” Jemma elbows Skye, who is barely hiding a large grin behind her hand.

“Good,” May says, turning back towards the house. Skye and Simmons follow suit, happy to be getting out of the cabin.

 

Hunter helps Lily with her small suitcase. It is that last thing they need to get on the quintet before taking off. Lily has her backpack, because no one else is allowed to touch it.

She is kind of exited for the flight. The last time she fell asleep really quickly and was sick, but now she’s a lot better. Flying’s really cool, especially since she was little so May let her sit at the front with all the buttons and switches.

“Why don’t you have a gun?” Lily asks. She had officially decided to ask whatever she wanted, because getting information was more important than some old scientist’s rules. “Or batons, like my—like Bobbi?”

“If I need one, I’ll take it.”

“Oh. So, you’re a badass,” Lily paraphrases. She nods like it makes sense. May almost feels like smiling, but suppresses it. “And you’re Coulson’s right hand man, right?”

“Woman. But yes.”

“And you trained Skye?”

May nods. Lily thinks she is getting tired of the questions, and Lily doesn’t really have anything else to ask, so she stops.

Somewhere over water about an hour later Lily gets another question. “Is flying hard?”

“No.”

“What’s autopilot?”

“It flies for you.”

“I’d like to fly,” Lily muses. “It’s fun.” She goes silent again, watching the clouds move underneath them.

 

Moving is also fun, Lily decides later. May leaves pretty quickly, but Skye and Simmons stay. Skye because they need someone to protect them (and, you know, just in case Lily decides to go on a Centipede-fueled rampage); Simmons because she’s avoiding her ex-boyfriend (Lily hears things…).

They move lots of boxes from the car and everyone gets new rooms. Lily’s question from earlier is answered when Bobbi and Lance, like Skye and Simmons, get a room together. She’s happy her parents are happy. It was definitely awkward there for a while.

The boxes are unpacked from the vans pretty quickly, with four grownups in charge. They really don’t have that much stuff, even though it seems like a lot of boxes. There must be something very transient about being an agent, Lily thinks. Always going where ever the agency needs you, regardless of what you want. And sometimes it paid off and you got to move to Seattle with your long-lost daughter and two random (girlfriends) agents.

Lily likes Seattle so far. Bobbi had been right, it _was_ rainy. Well, not rainy. More drizzly. And when it stops for a moment and she looks up, she can see a real honest-to-god rainbow. Like, wow.

“Unpacked all your stuff?” Bobbi asks, sticking her head into Lily’s new bedroom. Lily nods. “Good. Skye’s ordering pizza,” she falters for a second, “have you had that before?”

Lily nods again, straightening her plastic elephant and remembering. Triangles with red stuff and cheese. Good. “Just cheese, please,” Lily says quietly. There had been some with circles of other stuff—pepperoni, maybe?—on it, but she hadn’t liked that.

Bobbi nods, looking at her with concern. She moves her whole body into the doorway, and Lily knows Bobbi wants to talk. That doesn’t stop her heart from speeding up. Bobbi’s blocking the only exit (her windows are painted shut).

“Do you like it here?”

Lily turns away from her drawers. “Yeah, it’s awesome!” she replies truthfully, getting her mind away from everything else. “Can I go help Hunter with the other boxes?”

Bobbi nods again, eyes still furrowed. Her arms are crossed and Lily isn’t exactly sure what she did done wrong. But then Bobbi smiles and moves aside, letting Lily leave, and the girl thinks she may have been imaging it.

Lily runs down the stairs quickly, eager to help with something. Since Simmons gave her the all-clear, Lily really hadn’t been able to use any of her pent-up energy, and it made her afraid. What if she did something and unintentionally ended up seriously hurting someone?

Her power is weird. If she uses it a bit every day, it’s kept at a manageable level. But if Lily doesn’t use it, it—whatever ‘it’ is—got stored up and eventually had to come out. Violently. On the other end of the spectrum, if Lily uses too much power she gets tired out and can’t use it for a couple days. It’s all very logical, especially given that she’s thinking about an unstable, extreme amount of strength.

Hunter’s downstairs, bringing in one of the last boxes. “Hey, poppet. One more in Skye’s van; could you fetch it for me?”

Lily nods, heading outside. She likes Skye’s van: it’s really cool—blue/purple!—and Skye herself is awesome, so of course her vehicle would represent.

Lily slides open the door to the back easily, spotting the last box immediately. It’s full of Skye/Jemma’s clothes, not that they’re that hard to tell apart. Skye wears mostly denim shirts while Jemma’s into cardigans and other things like that.

Lily takes it inside, dropping the box outside of Skye and Jemma’s room.

“That the last one?” Jemma asks, dragging it inside. Lily helps her by giving it a carefully controlled push. Not that carefully controlled, actually, as Simmons almost falls down. Lovely.

“Yes,” Lily responds.

Skye, on her phone in the corner, cups a hand over the microphone. “Cheese, right?”

Lily nods before going back downstairs. She waves at Bobbi and Lance, who are talking in their room and unpacking, so Lily is the only one downstairs when the doorbell rings.

The sound startles her at first. It’s a lot like the buzzer they sometimes used to throw her off in the lab. ( _She was sitting on the bed, waiting—_ ). But Lily, thanks to good reason and TV, knows it’s just the door.

No one comes to open it, so Lily waits ten seconds then starts towards the door. There’s a lock—a lot of locks, actually—but they’re all very easy to open. Slide this one over, turn another 90 degrees counter clockwise. The _really_ weird one is a small slide on the doorknob Lily has to put her thumb on, but after that the door opens easily.

Only, it’s not a pizza guy outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you've got time, tell me what you think!


	10. Begin Again (Just, Please, Don't Trust So Simply)

_Only, it’s not the pizza guy outside._

Two people. One male, one female. The male is shorter—no, younger, Lily’s age. They’re both your average “brown hair, brown eyes, white” (though the woman might be a Latina—Lily can’t quite tell). The woman’s pretty and looks like a badass. The boy’s a little scared; Lily thinks she can take him, easily.

When the blonde realizes what she’s doing, Lily makes herself stop sizing them up. No need. Just a woman and boy with a mysterious dish-like thing which totally isn’t a holding weapon.

_Right?_

Before Lily can really freak out and do something bad, Simmons is there, pushing her out of the way and shielding her with the door.

“Hi. Is this a bad time?” the woman asks, sweet as honey. Her voice drips sincerity to the point where Lily’s almost sick.

“No, not at all,” Simmons lies.

_She’s not very good at it, is she?_

“It’s just, we saw you moving in… I’m Piper and this is Peter.”

“Jemma. Jemma Simmons.”

Lily is debating whether to run or stay around and listen in. The later wins out. Damn curiosity.

“This is for you,” Piper says, shoving the dish into Jemma’s hands. The scientist isn’t ready and almost drops it. “And welcome. To the neighborhood.”

“Yeah, thank—” Whatever overly nice thank-you Jemma had planned is cut off by Bobbi coming down the stairs.

“What is it?’ Lily’s mom asks before seeing the open door. “Oh. Hello.” The SHIELD agent’s hands go to her back, and Lily knows she’s fingering the tips of her batons, just in case.

“Hey,” Piper says somewhat offhandedly. It just seems to be the way she says things, which is cool. Lily likes her jacket. And her haircut. And her—“Are you two…?”

“What? No, she doesn’t… well, sometimes… but… we’re not dating,” Jemma explains. Badly.

“What’s goin’ on down there?’ Lance asks in his trademark “I don’t really give a shit but I kind of do—also, I’m British” accent.

Piper smirks. Lily isn’t sure why, but Jemma’s ears go slightly read and Bobbi looks amused.

Grownups are _weird_.

“Why’s everyone shouting?” Skye asks, running down the stairs with an empty box in tow.

“There’s someone at the door,” Lily explains.

“And who’s that?” Piper asks, even nicer than she sounded before. Which is saying something.

Lily looks at the grownups worriedly. Skye nods at her, but Lily still feels scared. It’s the same overly nice tone the scientists used to use before the blonde got her Centipedes and could kill them all.

There’s a pause, and it’s too long. Piper’s smile is getting forced, now, and Lily’s heartbeat is speeding up. She can’t remember the question.

Hunter jumps to her aid. “Lily. She’s a bit shy around new people.”

“Uh-huh. So’s Peter sometimes.”

“Are you her dad?” Peter asks quietly.

“Yeah, mate. And Bobbi’s her mum. And Skye and Jemma—”

There’s a pause. Lily thinks fast. “Jemma’s dad’s sister. And Skye is her girlfriend. They share a room and everything.”

The adults join into a small burst of laughter while Lily and Peter both make confused faces. “You know, so they can—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Bobbi says teasingly. She turns back to Piper and Peter. “Do you two live on this street?”

“Right across from you,” Piper responds, nodding towards a one-story house facing theirs.

“Does Peter’s dad live there too?” Lily inquires, peeking out from behind the door to look at the windows. There weren’t any lights on.

“No. And Piper isn’t my mom,” Peter answers.

( _Family friend_ , Piper mouths to the grownups.)

“Oh.” Lily wishes she could tell him she used to not have parents either, but it’s probably not a good idea.

“Yeah. Piper feels bad about it so she buys me Legos. I like to build things. Want to see?”

Lily nods quickly, moving toward the door. The adults continue on with their conversation ( _boring!_ ). It’s all quite awkward in the doorway, but Lily understands why none of them would really want to invite anyone inside. The agents hadn’t found the time to hide any of their ICERS, yet, so they were all piled up on the kitchen table.

Peter shows her a small grey thing. It’s got a shallow cup on one end connected to a small, thin tower of blocks. _That_ was connected via hinge to a long, horizontal block which was also connected to the cup, but by rubber bands.

“It’s a catapult,” Peter explains. “You cut the rubber bands and it throws whatever’s in the cup.”

“You must use a lot of rubber bands,” Lily comments, inspecting the toy.

“Yeah,” Peter replies sheepishly. His empty hands retreat to his jeans’ pockets. “I’m working on the design. Most of the time this one ends up throwing the cup. Piper thinks I’m going to dent the walls.”

Lily nods. “It’s the hinge.”

“I know. I have one at home which works better, but you have to hold it down. This one will be much more efficient when I figure it out.”

“What are you trying to hit?” Lily asks.

“Nothing, really. I just like making things, then making them better. Are you going to Greenway or Fairview?”

“What?”

“School. Greenway or Fairview?”

Lily shakes her head. “Neither. I’m homeschooled.”

“Oh. I go to Greenway. You’re lucky, it’s pretty horrible.”

“Oh.” Lily isn’t sure what to say.

“Yeah. You know we’re the only people who live on this street?”

Lily isn’t surprised, but she knew how to act like it. “Really?”

“Yeah. That lady who came by on a plane earlier? She works for the guy who owns this place. He only rents out these two houses, because the rest are really old. And before you guys came, no one even lived in this house. It was haunted.”

“Really?” Lily says skeptically. She doesn’t believe in ghosts.

“No. I was just seeing if you would believe me.”

Lily smirks, proud she passed his test. “I didn’t.”

“I know. You’re smart. That’s good. Want to come over after school tomorrow? You can help me with my designs.” Peter pauses. “We could be friends.”

Lily nods, then stops. “Shouldn’t you ask Piper?”

“Pipes, can Lily come over tomorrow?”

“If her parents say yes,” Piper responds automatically.

Everyone turns to Bobbi. She looks doubtful.

“Please?” Lily says, putting on as hopeful a face as she can muster. When that doesn’t work, she goes straight too nuclear. “Why shouldn’t I be able to?” Lily asks, knowing Bobbi can’t say the obvious answer.

“Yes, you can go,” Bobbi says after a pause. She isn’t happy, but Lily doesn’t care.

Lily is on top of the world. She just made her first friend.

 

“They seem nice, Pipes. Real nice,” Peter says after him and Piper leave Lily’s house later. “They even gave us pizza!”

It’s a little cold outside, so he pulls his hood up. A shoot of webbing follows his wrist and lands somewhere to the right; he and Piper both pretend not to notice.

“People lie,” Piper replies, stone cold. Now the “happy” act is up, she almost feels like going goth for a week, just to make up for it. And her face still hurt from the smiling.

Peter kicks at the ground, sending up a bit of turf. He doesn’t like where this is going.

“This is my job, Pete. We’re just getting information,” Piper sighs.

She opens the door, turning on a light and exposing their home. In the back room, a set of computers display certain rooms Lily’s home. Right now, the girl is reading.

Peter looks away. “But for which guys: good or bad?”

Piper doesn’t answer.

 

Bobbi pretends to be mad at Lily for manipulating her like that, but in reality, she’s jumping for joy. It’s the kind of thing all kids do, the kind of thing Lily wouldn’t have done if she wasn’t completely comfortable with them.

Things are getting easier. Bobbi didn’t ever think they would, but they are.

“Time for bed,” the mother says eventually, watching her daughter stifle a yawn with the back of her hand. “Come on, little duck.”

“Duck?” Lily asks, standing and starting up the stairs.

Bobbi shrugs, following her. “Do you mind?”

Lily thinks for a moment. Bobbi notices she always looks just Hunter when she thinks, on the rare occasion he did ponder something. “No,” Lily decides. “It’s nice.”

“Good.” Bobbi stands for a moment in the doorway of Lily’s bedroom before following her in, wondering if it’s okay for her to enter. She eventually decides it is. “Where are your clothes?”

Lily sits herself down on the edge of the bed carefully, pointing to the top drawer of the dresser.

Bobbi takes out underwear and pajamas. “Okay, why don’t you hop in the shower?” Bobbi says. She looks at Lily’s hair for a moment. It’s getting greasy. “I’ll come in and help you with your hair in a minute.”

Lily nods, hopping right off the bed and into the adjoining bathroom. It’s tiled in blue and white, with a frosted window and yellow lights.

After Lily’s showered and dressed, the mother and daughter stand facing the mirror as Bobbi dries her hair with a yellow towel. Aside from the color, it’s clean (she checks), and has a flower stitched on one corner.

Their likeness is striking, really. Lily has Hunter’s expressions, but everything else comes at least partly from Bobbi. Even that one lock of hair that never dries straight.

“Okay if I brush it?”

“Will it hurt?” Lily asks seriously.

Unwilling to lie, Bobbi nods. “For a little.”

“’K,” Lily agrees, almost suspiciously. She jumps when they get to the first knot, but it’s fine from there. Bobbi finishes by making to braids and telling the blonde to brush her teeth.

Hunter comes then, and he reads her a chapter of her book (the fifth Harry Potter), while Bobbi sits quietly at the end of the bed. Lily’s transfixed the whole time.

When it’s over, they wish her goodnight, shut off the light, and leave.

And, for once, all three of them feel… normal.

 

The next day, things get even _more_ normal, and it’s great.

Lily wakes up and gets dressed immediately, heading downstairs with her hair still in the braids from last night because she isn’t sure how to take them out. Her grey hoodie is new, and so is her black _Periodic Table of Minecraft_ t-shirt (she isn’t quite sure what Minecraft is, but she intends to find out), and her Converse.

She feels bright and shiny and new, and she most certainly likes it.

The new kitchen is bright and painted instead of dark and log-y. It’s got a big window on one wall and a five-chaired round table just under it. Lily takes the seat farthest from the stove (for some reason, that voice in her head wants her to put her hand over a flame), and watches Skye and Simmons work around each other. They’re in sync, and it’s beautiful. Skye will get something from the fridge, leave it open, and Simmons will be there a second later looking for something else. If Simmons doesn’t like a song, Skye picks up on the slight crinkle in her nose and she’ll go change it, herself.

Bobbi and Hunter enter a little later, smiles on their lips and springs in their steps. They sit with Lily wedged between them, letting Skye and Simmons finish by themselves. Simmons is making coffee and toast, but Lily gets toast and juice because “coffee is bad for children”.

They all eat breakfast together, talking, and then Simmons and Skye start working and Hunter goes out to scope out the rest of the neighborhood while Bobbi fixes Lily’s hair.

It comes out in waves and Bobbi brushes them until Lily’s whole head shines. Then she gets a hair tie and bundles it all up into a ponytail. The blonde hasn’t got the balls to tell her so, but it’s way too high.

Simmons helps Lily with some science work on her computer until noon. Lily isn’t hungry, but she eats anyway because Simmons is the kind who watches people. The scientist is waiting for something, but the blonde doesn’t know what it is until a stranger is knocking on the door.

The man comes in and Lily has to sit in her bedroom for a bit and read while all the grownups talk downstairs. She wants to listen in, but she doesn’t. Last time, with Coulson, it didn’t turn out that well. She doesn’t want a repeat.

Anyway, Lily recounts this all to the strange man—Dr. Garner—when he comes into her room. “So yeah, we’re pretty normal now,” she says with a small smile.

“Is that important to you, Lily? Being normal?” he asks.

Dr. Garner is sitting on Lily’s desk chair and Lily’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Lily has already shown him her things and said, no, he couldn’t touch them. That was when the questions started.

Lily thinks for a moment. “Maybe. Not really important, but it’s nice. I’m going to the house across the street later.”

“Are you looking forward to that?”

“Yeah. Peter seems nice. He said he’d let me help him fix his catapult.” Lily had been thinking about that one, in the back of her mind, for the whole day.

Dr. Garner nods. “And what about your parents?”

“Hunter and Bobbi? They’re nice. I like them. They used to scream at each other a lot, but now they’re… friendlier.”

Garner writes something down. “Tell me about Centipede.”

“No,” Lily answers immediately. It’s an instinctive, automatic reaction.

Garner raises and eyebrow. It’s judgy. Lily isn’t sure she likes him, completely. “Okay. Do you want to talk about—”

Lily hears a car. Glancing out the window, she sees Piper’s car pull up outside. Peter jumps out of it and starts running towards Lily’s house.

“Actually, I’ve got to go,” Lily says, cutting Garner off midsentence. “Peter’s about to be here.”

 

Peter’s room is blue and cramped. It’s quite nice, with lots of Legos… everywhere. Literally every surface—excluding the bed, which itself is on top of a desk filled with Lego—has at least one Lego creation on it.

Peter pulls out the desk chair, saying “You can sit here if you want.”

Lily nods and sits down, spinning around so the fan looks like it’s moving, instead of her. “Did you make all of these?”

Peter sits down on the window seat, pulling over a box of exclusively grey Lego. “Yeah. I brought some of them over from my aunt and uncle’s apartment in Queens. They’re separated by shape and color, okay?”

Lily nods again. “So, where’s the better one you were telling me about yesterday?”

“Here,” Peter says walking over to the desk. He picks up the catapult and hands it to Lily. “So?” he asks after a pause.

Lily inspects the object carefully. “It’s good. Reloading must be hard, though.”

Peter shrugs. “Not _hard_. It just takes a while.”

“Well, we’d better make some modifications, then.”

Peter grins, pushing over the box of Lego.

 

After working for the afternoon at Peter’s house, Skye comes over to bring Lily home.

“We added a plastic spoon instead of a cup; it makes it lighter so the catapult can go further. And then we put it on wheels so it would be portable. Me and Peter couldn’t figure out how to make it so you don’t have to hold it down, but we’re gonna figure out how tomorrow.”

Skye raises an eyebrow. “Tomorrow?”

Lily stops walking in the middle of the road, making Skye let out a kind of yelp. The agent almost pulls her arm out of its socket, forcing her the rest of the way to the sidewalk.

“I can go back tomorrow, can’t I?” the blonde pleads.

Skye looks like one of those people who is terrified of giving the wrong answer, but has no idea what the right one is. “The house _is_ clean for bugs…”

“You swept the place?” Lily asks, suddenly indignant.

“It’s your parents’ decision.”

“You mean Bobbi’s,” Lily mutters under her breath.

Despite the severity of the situation, Skye laughs softly. “Yeah, I mean Bobbi’s.”


	11. Don't Assume (Leaving Doesn't Hurt More Than Staying)

It’s hot outside when Skye leads Lily out the back door. The agent’s got two water bottles in her hands; both are left near the base of a large tree while they practice.

“You’re already strong. Fast. We just need to make you smart,” Skye says. Circling the blonde, she begins instruction.

_Feet here. Arms here. Head swiveling. Trust your instincts. Breathe. Feet. Arms. Hands. Fingers. Toes. Breathe. Eyes. Instincts._

_Instincts._

By the time they’ve finished for the day, Lily’s hair is plastered to her forehead and her breath comes hard. Skye leads her over to the tree with their water, sitting down and motioning for her to do the same.

The grass is soft, softer than Lily would have imagined. She’s exhausted, but in a good way. The kind of ache that goes down to your bones and takes out the other kind of pain. She drinks while focusing on that and the way this tree’s leaves work together to form a shield, catching the sun. In a broad sense, the blonde understands photosynthesis—that is, she knows the leaves _want_ the sun, so they can make food—but it’s pretty to think about the tree helping them out like this.

When she’s done, Skye cracks the other bottle. “Drink, Jemma says it’s important.”

Lily takes the bottle. “Why do you call her Jemma, when everyone else says Simmons?”

“I used to call her Simmons, before we were together. I guess it’s more professional.”

“But everyone calls _you_ Skye,” the blonde points out.

“I don’t have a last name,” Skye replies shortly.

There’s a pause.

“I get it,” Lily says. “I didn’t used to, either. They used to call me Mantis, I think.”

“Mantis. Good superhero name.”

There’s an ant crawling on Lily’s leg. She doesn’t like where the conversation’s gone, so she chooses to think about that, instead.

“Not that you _have_ to be a superhero.”

“Coulson wants me to be.”

Skye’s eyebrows furrow, like she doesn’t quite get it. “Why’d you think that?”

“You’re training me, right? So, there’s got to be a reason. Coulson’s got to get something out of it.” _And he’s not going to arm me if he thinks I’ll be working against him_.

“Maybe he just wants you to be safe.”

Lily holds back a snort. “Yeah. Maybe.”

The ant is dead in her palm.

 

They make her see Dr. Garner again later, only this time in a little office at the back of their house.

“New, new environment,” Jemma says, smiling. But her mouth is all wobbly and it turns out ore like a grimace.

Lily thinks they just want to make her uncomfortable, as if that will make her talk. _Well, good luck with that_.

The blonde twists in her seat, trying to get comfortable. The room is far too dark, which she isn’t used to. Bright white lights bouncing off dark grey walls—it doesn’t make sense. There isn’t even a window to open.

“So, Lily,” says Dr. Garner. He’s sitting across from her, yellow notepad balanced on a knee. “How are you?”

“Fine. You?”

“Good. What do you want to talk about today?”

The blonde shrugs, picking at a loose thread on her leggings. It’s all too cold and artificial and silent. She feels an innate desire to fill the void. “Nothing to talk about.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be here. Centipede—”

“Is dead. Hydra shut it down. Nothing’s left.”

Garner gets thoughtful. “You are. That’s something.”

“ _Someone_ ,” she corrects him. “It’s different.”

Garner writes something down. “How?”

She shrugs again. “I don’t know.”

 

When she leaves the grey room, Lily somehow finds herself leaving the house.

Garner’s question rings around her ears, there but not quite real. It’s distorted, warped by the blood pumping around her brain and the sound of her feet hitting the asphalt.

When she’s running, Lily feels free for the first time. Before now, she’s always been _someone’s_. Centipede’s or Hydra’s or SHIELD’s. Bobbi’s or Hunter’s or Skye’s or Simmons’s. Coulson’s, though wasn’t he SHIELD, in a way?

 _I don’t want to be here anymore_. Garner made her realize that, although the blonde doesn’t know why, or what changed. And, if she’s hers, can’t she leave?

When Lily decides to try it, she’s already partway into the forest surrounding their street. Her backpack is banging against the back of her hip (why had she brought it to the meeting with Garner? Lily must’ve _known_ , in some part of her brain, that this was coming) and small drops of rain keep hitting her face.

It occurs to her that she’s young and has always been too young for this. At the same time, she’s older now than she was when it all started. But then, wasn’t that also before she had a family?

Now, the blonde thinks she has a future again. Something to do every day and something to work towards: survival. The one thing Lily knows she’s good at.

(She was scared). She was going to be fine.

At least, she always had been.

 

Garner leaves. The four remaining adults notice Lily’s absence almost immediately, but they don’t realize what it means until later.

The thing about having four adults in a home like theirs is that they never thought to ask the others if they had Lily. They just kind of assumed she was around.

And Lily’s _quiet_. It isn’t unusual for her to spend hours alone in her room, so they all figure that’s where she is.

Bobbi is the only one who feels like something’s off. But, when she throws up, the mother assumes it’s just Hunter’s cooking. Whenever she tries to investigate the mixed-up, tormented feeling laying on her chest, another wave of sickness washes over her and she forgets.

Eventually, it’s Hunter to puts it together, watching Skye and Simmons pass him in the hall at the same moment Bobbi retches.

“Hey, have you seen Lily lately?”

They stop and shake their heads.

Now concerned, Hunter knocks twice on his daughter’s door. “Lily?” he asks. When there’s no answer, he cracks the door and peers inside.

The room is oddly clean, but there’s one identifying mark it’s owner is gone: the top of the dresser where Lily keeps her trinkets is empty. Lance steps inside to take a closer look. Then it’s the hoodie she hangs on the bathroom door and the visibly empty space _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ should be in.

With _Deathly Hallows_ comes the realization. Hunter had tried to read ahead, that’s probably why the word “runaway” comes to him first.

“She’s not here?” Skye asks, eyebrows raised, as she and Simmons enter the room.

Hunter shakes his head, tearing past them and back into the hallway. “Com’ on.”

They turn the house over, looking for her in every room except the bathroom Bobbi’s being sick in. But she isn’t there.

When they finally call it quits, Hunter can see the sky outside turning orange. “Call Coulson.”

 

Lily stops running when she reaches the island’s edge. Or, at least, close enough the she can see the land-bridge that connects them to the city but still be under the forest’s cover. She walks a little way back and climbs a sturdy tree.

She is seven-almost-eight now—old enough to be on her own (at least in her own mind). Either way, Lily has done this before. She’s run from a place as it is about to fall; she’s taken care of herself for nearly a year.

She has only started having _people_ in the past month or two. Lily can survive without them, no problem.

The tree isn’t all that tall, but it’s got branches wide enough and strong enough for her to sit on. Lily leans her back against the trunk itself and lets her legs dangle off the branch. The leaves from a higher branch above her provide enough cover yet do not impede _her_ vision.

Lily maneuvers her bag onto her lap. It’s the same battered black backpack she’s been carrying around for years; it’s safe and reliable and _home_. Her things are all inside, as well as some food and water provisions she stole back at the cabin. Not a lot, but enough to get her to a city, where she can steal anything she needs.

It’s also got her book. That isn’t a good tactical move, she knows. But it is the last one in the series and she is almost done with it so she must know what is going to happen to Harry. There is just one chapter and the epilogue left, anyway, so she can finish it now, while the sun is still up, and drop it in the morning.

As she reads, the night gets colder and the light dims. Lily doesn’t notice either, thanks to Centipede-sight and Centipede-warmth. By the time she is on the last page, however, she can hear people stomping through the forest. They’re looking for her.

But it isn’t Bobbi and Skye, or even Lance and Simmons.

Piper and Peter, led by flashlights, trample through the forest. They search the ground, completely unaware that their target is above them.

Lily stops breathing.

“Why are we going this way?” Peter asks, looking tired. “Hunter and Skye went the other way, to the actual bridge.”

“Exactly. We don’t want them to know we’re looking, and Lily’s smarter than that. This one’s a land bridge, you can walk right across it and be in Seattle in a day.”

“How would she have known that?” Peter asks after a moment.

This time, their voices are closer. Lily brings her legs up onto the tree branch as carefully as she can, making no noise.

Piper is even closer than Peter. “I heard her asking about it on the bugs. Good job with those, by the way.”

Lily imagines Peter grinning at that. The bastard. Her mind decides that they’re working for Whitehall. The doctor must want her back, she _is_ his last specimen.

Lily decides there’s no way in hell she’s going with them.

The blonde stays silently in her tree, hearing their footsteps grow farther and farther away until even her Centipede-hearing can’t pick it up. Then she is safe.

(She is never safe; this is just a small second of safe _r_ ).

Night comes, but Lily doesn’t sleep. She sits in the tree and waits for morning, so she can be off this damn island.

 

The trio decide Hunter and Skye should search the island’s main exit, the bridge, while Simmons stays behind to make sure Bobbi doesn’t find out Lily’s gone.

They go on foot, in case Lily hears the van coming and runs again. Both adults know she can probably hear their footfalls as well, but they don’t acknowledge the fact out of fear.

What if they can’t find her? (What if she doesn’t _want_ to be found?)

They’re up against a super-powered little girl who had _just_ ran away from them. Like that. If Lily doesn’t _want_ them to find her, they won’t.

But they must try. Because it’s a kid; Hunter’s kid and Bobbi’s kid, the kid that Skye and Simmons had just spent a month keeping alive. Because it’s _Lily_ , they have to try to find her, before she gets hurt.

(Before she hurts someone else).

But she isn’t here. She isn’t anywhere. They look and look until it’s morning and the sun is rising.

Night’s gone and Lily’s gone with it.

 

She wakes at dawn.

Fresh sunlight hits her open eyes with the force of a pressurized water, stealing her breath and crushing her ribs down to nothing. They used to hose her down with that kind of water after matches, when she was empty and bloody and their eyes were cruel and afraid.

The blonde shakes her head, dissipating the fog, and inhales. The fire of her being gets fanned again.

She jumps down from her perch, slinging her bag across her back, and starts walking. From her tree, it’s just a short trip to the land bridge. She doesn’t run just yet. Lily knows she should still be quiet.

The bridge is made of dirt and sand, but mostly sandy dirt. Water laps at both sides, being pushed in and out by a force Lily can’t see. But she respects it. Whatever can move and control a great body of water like this deserves at respect.

Lily kneels near the shore, tearing off the book’s outer cover and throwing it to the water. The weight isn’t that much, but it’s still dead. She would throw away the pages, too, but it’d occurred to her that they would make good kindling.

When the hard cover has sunk far enough to be obscured from even her eyes, Lily grabs her bag starts running.

She doesn’t stop until her lungs are on the brink of exploding and her legs feel like they’re about give out. She doesn’t stop until her mind is foggy and her face is cold as a block of ice. She doesn’t stop until she can no longer see the island behind her.

By then, it’s past midday. Lily can tell because the sky has turned orange and is on the brink of something darker.

She stops. She catches her breath. She starts running again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter, guys! Hope you enjoyed this one!


End file.
